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fw tl^e TBejst C]^<n90 



Upti. ir. Mxiitt^B lonkfi 



A HEART GARDEN 
BUILDING OF CHARACTER 
COME YE APART 
DR. MILLER'S YEAR BOOK 
EVERY DAY OF LIFE 
FINDING THE WAY J , 
FOR THE BEST THINGS) 
" GLIMPSES THROUGH LIFE'S WINDOWS 
GOLDEN GATE OF PRAYER 
HIDDEN LIFE 
JOY OF SERVICE 
LESSON OF LOVE 
MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE 
MINISTRY OF COMFORT 
MORNING THOUGHTS 
PERSONAL FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS 
SILENT TIMES 
STORY OF A BUSY LIFE 
STRENGTH AND BEAUTY 
THINGS TO LIVE FOR 
UPPER CURRENTS 
WHEN THE SONG BEGINS 
YOUNG PEOPLE'S PROBLEMS 



InokUta 



BEAUTY OF KINDNESS 

BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS 

BY THE STILL WATERS 

CHRISTMAS MAKING 

FACE OF THE MASTER 

GENTLE HEART 

GIRLS ; FAULTS AND IDEALS 

GLIMPSES OF THE HEAVENLY LIFE 

HOW? WHEN? WHERE? 

IN PERFECT PEACE 

INNER LIFE 

LOVING MY NEIGHBOR 

MARRIAGE ALTAR 

MARY OF BETHANY 

SECRET OF GLADNESS 

SECRETS OF HAPPY HOME LIFE 

SUMMER GATHERING 

TO-DAY AND TO-MORROW 

TRANSFIGURED LIFE 

UNTO THE HILLS 

YOUNG MEN ; FAULTS AND IDEALS 

©tyomaH f . OlrotupU $: Olnmpan^ 



3Be0t C]^ing0 



BY 

J. R. MILLER 

AUTHOR OF 

'silent times, '^ "making the most of LIFE,'^ 
"upper currents," etc. 



What I aspired to be. 
And was not, comforts me. 

— BROWNINa. 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
PUBLISHERS 




UBRARY of congress] 
Two Cooles Re6«lVQd 

AU6 18 1907 
Copyrififht Entry 

CUSS A AXc/No. 
COPYU. 



Copyright, 1907, hy Thomas Y. Crowell S^ Co, 



Published, September, 1907 



11 E who is satisfied with himself and with his 
attaiyiments is not living worthily, A wholesome 
life ever sees better things yet to he reached. It 
is true^ as Browning says^ 

When the fight begins within himself, 
A man's worth something. 

Being good is not enough ; striving to he hetter 
is not the loftiest aim. Nothing less than the 
hest should ever satisfy an immortal heing, 

J. R. M. 

Philadelphia, U. S. A. 



TITLES OF CHAPTERS 



I. For the Best Things Page 3 

II. "Think on These Things" 17 

III. Apelles, the Approved 31 

IV. The Rule of Peace 45 
V. Sympathy with Weakness 59 

VI. Persis the Beloved 73 

VII. This Beginning of His Signs 89 

VIII. Christ in Our Every Days 105 

IX. Doing Impossible Things 119 

X. Crosses 133 

XI. Power of Christ's Friendship 149 

XII. Why Not Be Troubled? 163 

XIII. The Problem of Temptation 179 

XIV. Christ's Body and Its Members 195 
XV. Reserve 209 

XVI. A Programme for a Day 223 

XVII. Let Us Love One Another 237 

XVIII. Praying Without Ceasing 251 

XIX. Roots and Roses 267 

XX. Show Me the Path 281 



for ti^e 15m Cl^insjSj 



[1] 



"/ may not reach the heights I seek, 
My untried strength may fail me; 
Or, halfway up the mountain peak, 

Fierce tempests may assail me. 
But though that place I never gain, 
Herein lies lifers comfort for my pain — 
/ will he worthy of it, 

''I may not triumph in success, 
Despite my earnest labor, 
I may Tiot grasp results that bless 

The efforts of my neighbor. 
But though that goal I never see, 
This thought shall always dwell with me- 
I will be worthy of itJ^ 



[2] 



CHAPTER ONE 

for tl^e I3ej5t Cl^tnfijJ 




E should seek only the best 
things In life. If everyone 
did, this would be an ideal 
world. The trouble is, 
however, that many know- 
ing the good, yet choose 
the evil. What shall we call the drift in human 
nature that causes it to gravitate so often 
and so easily toward lower rather than rise 
upward toward higher things.'^ We need not 
trouble about the philosophy of it, but it is 
worth while for us to find some way of over- 
coming the unhappy tendency. There is a 
way. It may not be easy — the easy course is 
just to let ourselves drift — ^but we know too 
well what the end of this will be. We should 
be brave enough to take ourselves vigorously 
in hand and to get our faces turned toward 
the best things. Nothing will drift up- 
stream; we shall have to use the oars if we 
[3] 



want our boat to go that way. But that is the 
way to the best things. 

What are the things that are worthiest and 
best? We do not need to say condemning 
words about the things of this world. It is 
our Father's world. It is full of beauty. The 
Creator saw when it was finished that it was 
all very good. We are to accept our place 
in life contentedly and cheerfully, whatever 
the limitations, whatever the hardness, and 
set about living in such a way that we shall 
make one little spot of the world as much 
as possible like heaven. 

We have only to turn to the Scriptures if 
we would learn what are the best things. 
Nothing can be worth while which will ever 
perish. We are immortal and only immortal 
things will meet our deepest needs. Nothing 
is best which we cannot carry with us when 
we go away from earth. We cannot carry 
money, or jewels, or estates, into the other 
world, hence these are not the best things. 
Jesus Christ is accepted as a divine Teacher 
— a Teacher come from God. Let us ask him, 
[41 



" What are the best things ? " and we find 
answers to our question on every page of the 
Gospels. In his Sermon on the Mount he says, 
" Seek ye first the kingdom of your Father 
and his righteousness." He had been exhort- 
ing his disciples against anxiety. He assured 
them that their Father who cares for the 
birds ; and clothes the flowers would much 
more surely care for them. They need never 
have any anxiety, therefore, nor give them- 
selves a moment's care about their physical 
needs. Instead of this, they should seek first 
and only the Father's kingdom, and all else 
that they should need would be supplied to 
them. 

The things of God's kingdom, therefore, are 
the best things. We leam what some of these 
things are from the Beatitudes. " Blessed are 
the poor in spirit," that is, the lowly, the 
humble. Those who think highly of them- 
selves are not the highest in God's sight, but 
those who forget themselves and hold all their 
gifts and powers at the bidding of the Mas- 
ter for any service to which he may send them. 
[5] 



Jesus spoke only once of his own heart, and 
then he said he was meek and lowly in heart. 
His whole life was one of lowliness. His 
hands had made the worlds, but he used them 
without reserve in serving earth's needy 
ones. 

" Blessed are the meek." The meek are the 
long-suffering, those who endure wrong pa- 
tiently, uncomplainingly, returning love for 
hate, kindness for unkindness, prayers for 
curses. Men do not usually think of meekness 
as one of the best things, but Jesus writes it 
high in the list, and says that the meek shall 
inherit the earth. 

^' Blessed are they that hunger and thirst 
after righteousness." It is not attainment 
only that heaven approves, but the longing to 
attain. Saintliness is beautiful, but it takes a 
long while to reach it. No doubt one of the 
best things is to be perfect, to wear the image 
of Christ, but the lofty reach seems almost 
impossible. This is the goal, but it shines far 
off, and it seems to us that we cannot come 
up to it till we gain heaven. It is a comfort 
[6] 



to us to know that one of the best things is 
longing for the best, hunger for righteous- 
ness. 

" Blessed are the merciful." Men do not 
praise the merciful. They commend what they 
call the heroic qualities. The strong, the 
brilliant, the clever, those who succeed even 
by trampling the meek under their feet, win 
the honors in this world. But the Master 
writes among those whom heaven calls blessed 
the merciful, those who are pitiful toward 
weakness, compassionate toward the erring, 
patient with the dull and slow, and almoners 
of the divine mercy toward all. 
" Blessed are the pure in heart." Is there in 
all the range of the things one may live for 
anything that will mean more in the making 
of happiness than, amid all life's experiences 
of temptation, to keep one's heart pure.^ This 
is a secret of peace which insures joy and 
gladness, whatever the experiences may be. 
It transfigures the life, making it shine as 
with an inner light. It gives one influence 
over others, making one a benediction every- 
[7] 



for ti^e I5t^t Ci^tngji 

where. A pure heart is one of the best 
things. 

" Blessed are the peacemakers." The highest 
of all the commendations in the Beatitudes is 
given to these — " they shall be called the sons 
of God." Unquestionably one of the best 
things in all the range of life is to be a peace- 
maker, to exert a loving influence over others, 
to help to bring together those who are in 
danger of falling apart, to deepen and 
strengthen friendships. There are enough 
people in the world who live to kindle strifes, 
to widen breaches and estrangements, to make 
men hate each other, to encourage quarreling 
and bitter feelings. No mission is diviner 
than to be a maker of peace between man and 
man. 

These are suggestions only of some of the 
best things. Jesus indicates others in his 
teachings. His disciples contended more than 
once on the question of greatness. It is a 
proper desire to wish to be a worthy follower 
of Christ. A good man used to pray, " Lord, 
make me an uncommon Christian." Christ 
[8] 



will never blame us for wanting to follow 
him with uncommon faithfulness and to live 
a life of unusual earnestness and godliness. 
But the disciples were thinking of rank, of 
priority in position. Jesus told them that the 
first places in his kingdom must be won — ^not 
by valor on the battlefield, not by favoritism, 
but by love. Those who serve others the most 
humbly, the most unselfishly, the most help- 
fully, are the best and most Christlike Chris- 
tians, 

On another occasion, the same lesson was 
taught by an act. Jesus quietly rose, laid 
aside his garments, girded him for the work 
of an actual servant, and then began to wash 
his disciples' feet. The Master showed them 
that such serving was not degrading, but 
honorable. Jesus never did anything diviner 
in all his ministry than what he did that 
night. And no better opportunity of doing 
truly great and noble things will ever come 
to us than when it is our privilege to per- 
form some lowly duties of love in serving or 
helping Christ's little ones. The lowlier the 
[9J 



for tl^e I3e0t Ci^tngjs 

person is who needs the help, and the lowlier 
the deed it may be ours to do, the diviner the 
service. 

" They are little, simple things to do,— 

To sweep a room, to bake a loaf of bread, 
Kiss a hurt finger, tie a baby^s shoe. 

To mend a crying school-boy^s broken sled, 

" Such little, simple things! but they above 
Who on our little world attendant wait. 
And joyful wait, note only if through love 
The deed be done to count the work as great /^ 

These are only hints of the best things in 
life. The world thinks that those who turn 
away from the quest for earth's prizes to 
live lowly lives of love, trying to help the 
poor, the weak, the obscure, are throwing 
away their opportunities. It thinks they are 
following a delusion, and pities them. But 
those are rather to be pitied who think they 
are finding the best things in their quest for 
wealth, for honor, for fame, for power. 
There will come a day of revealing, when 
[10] 



things shall be seen as they are, and then it 
will appear that those who have devoted their 
lives to the honor of Christ, and to the lowly 
service of love in Christ's name are the really 
shining ones, that they are doing the best, 
worthiest and most beautiful things under 
the sun, and will receive the highest honors 
and rewards. 

If we learn this lesson well the aspect of all 
life will be changed for us. We shall see that 
there are things that are gloriously worth 
while, in which the world beholds no beauty, 
no honor. The greatest thing is love. To live 
the little Thirteenth Chapter of First Corin- 
thians day after day, in quiet circumstances, 
among people who need to be loved and helped 
onward, is a greater achievement for a life- 
time than to win one's way to fame or to 
wealth by selfish striving. One writes thus of 
a " perfect day " : 

'^ I have done good work; I have seen a friend 
Who cheered me with a cordial look; 
And I found a sweet half hour to spend 
With a childj and a rare good book. 

[11] 



for tl^e ism Cl^fngjs 

" What more could I ask than this, I say? — 
A book — a child— a friend, 
And my honest work! ^Twas a perfect day, 
From dawn till the starlight end,'' 

We should live always for the best things. 
Some people live for good things, but not- the 
best, and the bood is often the enemy of the 
best, inasmuch^ as it satisfies us and makes us 
contented to live on the lower planes. There 
is nothing dishonorable in having small ca- 
pacities and in living and working in com- 
monplace positions, if one is doing his best. 
The lowliest who does God's will faithfully is 
as honorable in God's sight as the man who, 
with larger abilities and larger opportunities, 
does greater things. But when one with great 
gifts does only trivial things, he is not liv- 
ing worthily. 

In our Lord's parable, the merchant sought 
always for the best. He dealt in pearls, one 
of the finest commodities of the times. He 
dealt only in goodly pearls, however, not in 
those of an inferior quality. One day he heard 
of a new pearl which had just been found 
[12] 



which was of exceptional beauty and bril- 
hance. It was of great value, so great that 
the only way he could obtain it was to sell all 
his other pearls. This he did, and purchased 
the one peerless pearl. 

This man illustrates those who are content 
with nothing less than the best things. The 
good does not satisfy them if there is a bet- 
ter ; the better is quickly given up to get the 
best. This must be the rule of life for all who 
would live worthily. Especially should it be 
the rule for all who are following Christ. The 
good should never content them if there is 
a better possible. They should be ready to 
pay any price to attain the best. 
In Christian life, only the highest ideal should 
be accepted. It is not enough to say, " Some 
of self and some of thee," or even " Less of 
self and more* of thee '' ; the only true striv- 
ing must be for " None of self, and all of 
thee." A young Christian has just asked 
whether dancing, card-playing and the the- 
atre are permissible for a Christian. The 
question may be answered by asking another : 
[13] 



for ti^e Q5e0t Ci^ingisj 

" Do you want to reach the highest and best 
in Christian hfe and service, or do you desire 
to attain only the lowest levels which the wid- 
est charity will accept as within the lines of 
permissible things? Do you want to rise to 
the absolutely best things in Christian conse- 
cration? or do you wish to make just as little 
as possible of your devotion to Christ ? " 
In all lines of life many pleasant things have 
to be given up in order to reach the best. 
There is a story of a boy who aspired to be 
some day a skillful surgeon. He was an en- 
thusiastic baseball player. An eminent sur- 
geon who knew the boy's desire told him 
that his playing would stiffen and thicken 
his fingers and finally destroy the delicacy of 
touch that is so essential in critical surgical 
work. The favorite amusement was instantly 
sacrificed — the good given up for the better, 
the best. 

The same rule must be followed in every de- 
partment of life. We can get the best things 
only by the sacrifice of the things that are 
merely good. 

[14] 



(( 



Wi^infi on Cl^ejse Ci^ittQjS" 



[15] 



/ jind earth not gray hut rosy, 
Heaven not grim but fair of hv^. 

Do I stoop? I pluck a posy. 

Do I stand and stare? AlVs blue. 

— Robert Browning. 

*^Let us believe the best; there are enough, you know, 
Judging by what they see — wronging each other so. 
Let us believe the best; there are enough to blame, 
Numbers to think the worst — numbers to brand a name, 

'^ Many a man would rise out of his dark despair, 
If there were only one just to believe and care — 
Out of the losing side daring to take his stand — 
Heedless of what men say, holding a brother^ s hand.^' 



[16] 



CHAPTER TWO 

^^Cl^infe on Cl^ejse Ci^fngjsi" 




HERE are certain single 
phases of life that are far- 
reaching in their influ- 
ence. The habit of cheer- 
fulness, for instance, is 
said to be worth to a man 
many thousands a year. The habit of being 
always an encourager, never a discourager, 
gives incalculable value to one's personality 
and influence. A discourager is a misanthrope. 
He makes life harder for every other life he 
touches ; and an encourager is a constant in- 
spiration to others, and makes life easier for 
every one. 

There is another habit of life, which if it 
were to become universal would change many 
things — ^namely, the habit of always seeing 
the good in people, in conditions, in circum- 
stances, and in experiences. St. Paul suggests 
it when he says in a remarkable passage, 
[17] 



" If there be any virtue, and if there be any 
praise, think on these things." The emphasis 
seems to be on any — if there be any virtue, 
even the least, in another, if there be in a 
life which seems almost wholly bad, even the 
smallest thing that is good, we are to find 
that and to think upon that mere speck of 
beauty, rather than on the much that is evil 
and unbeautiful. If there be in a person any 
praise, any smallest quality or act that is 
worthy of praise, of which we can speak with 
even the faintest approval and commenda- 
tion, we should give thought to that, and 
voice our appreciation, rather than think and 
speak of the many things in the person that 
are not good or praiseworthy. 
It is easy to think of reasons why this is the 
Christian way. It is Christ's way with us. 
If there be any good, even the faintest spark 
of virtue or hope in a life, Christ sees it. He 
is looking for good and hopeful things. Some 
people see only the faults and flaws in the 
lives of others — they are looking for these 
things — blemishes, defects, imperfections. 
[18] 



^^Ci^infi on Ci^e^e Cl^tngjci" 

They are never trying to find anything beau- 
tiful and they find what they seek. Our Mas- 
ter, however, is looking for things that are 
right, good beginnings of better things. 
Some one asked the curator of an academy 
of fine arts regarding the pictures of a cer- 
tain artist : " What do you consider the de- 
fects in his work.?" The answer was, "We 
do not look for defects here, but for excel- 
lences." It is thus that our Master does in 
our lives — he does not look for the imperfec- 
tions, of which there always are many, but 
for things that are worthy of commendation. 
If there be any virtue he finds it, takes note 
of it, nourishes it, woos it out. If Christ 
looked upon us as we too often look upon 
others, seeing the flaws, the shortcomings, the 
inconsistencies, the failures, and judged us 
by these, not many of us ever would grow 
into beauty. But where there is even a spark 
of good he finds it and cultivates it into its 
best possibilities. 

We shall never become of much use In the 

world until we learn this lesson of always 

[19] 



finding and encouraging the best. We shall 
never lift up any one to a higher, better life 
until we have found in him something to ap- 
prove and commend. There are some men and 
women who wish to help others, to be of use 
to them, but work after a wrong method. 
They think they must eliminate the faults 
and defects which they find, and so they watch 
for things they cannot approve. They have 
keen eyes for specks — none are too small for 
them to see — but they never see the beau- 
tiful things in another. The Master refers to 
such persons in his teaching about motes and 
beams. He would have us look for the good, 
not the evil. In others. 

There is no life so devoid of beauty and good 
that it has in it nothing worthy of commenda- 
tion. Ruskin found even in the mud of Lon- 
don streets the elements out of which gems 
are formed — the opal, the sapphire, the dia- 
mond. The love of Christ finds even in the 
moral refuse of this world possibilities of 
loveliness in character and heavenliness in 
life. We cannot do anything to help men by 
[20] 



^^Cl^fnfi on Ci^e^e Ci^tngiEi" 

indulging in criticism and denunciation. We 
can call out the good in others only as the 
sun woos out the plants and flowers from the 
cold earth in the springtime — by its warmth. 
If the friends of Christ would cease their 
fault-finding and become true friends of men, 
finding the smallest beginnings of virtue and 
encouraging them, the earth would soon be 
changed into a garden. 

We are continually meeting those who are 
discouraged, who have fallen under the 
shadow of misfortune, who have done wrong, 
perhaps, and are suffering in reputation, or 
who have been unjustly treated and are en- 
during the sting. These are the persons to 
whom our love should go out in words of 
hope and cheer, instead of blame. James 
Whitcomb Riley teaches the lesson in his well- 
known lines : * 

When over the fair fame of friend or foe 
The shadow of disgrace shall fall, instead 

* Used by permission of the publishers, The Bobbs-Mer- 
riU Co. 

[21] 



fox ti^e 15m Cl^inasi 

Of words of blame or proof of thus and so. 
Let something good be said. 

Forget not that no fellow-being yet 

May fall so low but love may lift his head; 
Even the cheek of shame with tears is wet 

If something good be said. 

No generous heart may vainly turn aside 
In ways of sympathy; no soul so dead 

But may awaken strong and glorified^ 
If something good be said. 

And so I charge ye, by the thorny crown. 
And by the cross on which the Saviour bled, 

And by your own souVs hope of fair renown, 
Let something good be said. 

One of the most significant words of personal 
experience in the Old Testament is that in 
which David tells us, at the close of his won- 
derful life, that all he had attained and 
achieved he owed to God's gentleness. " Thy 
gentleness hath made me great." If God had 
been harsh with him — stern, critical, se- 
verely exacting, David never would have 
[22] 



^^Ci^fnfe on Ci^ejsie Ci^tnQjS" 

reached the noble hfe, with its wonderful 
achievements, which he finally attained. If 
God had been severe with him after his 
falls and failures, David never would have 
risen to power and distinction. God's gentle- 
ness made him great. We can help others to 
become great only by being patient with 
them. Men and women everywhere need noth- 
ing so much as gentleness. 

"/So many gods, so many creeds , 

So many paths that wind and wind. 
When just the art of being kind 
Is all this sad world needs. ^' 

Are not many of us too brusque with each 
other? Do we not lack in kindliness, in pa- 
tience, in tenderness .f^ Some men would have 
us believe that gentleness is an unmanly qual- 
ity. But it is not — rudeness and harshness are 
always unmanly; gentleness is divine. For 
many people, life is not easy, and we make 
it very much harder for them to live worth- 
ily when we deal harshly with them, when we 
are exacting, when we chide or blame them, 
[23] 



or when we exercise our wits in saying smart, 
cutting and irritating things to annoy and 
vex them. It was said of WiUiam CuUen Bry- 
ant that he treated every neighbor as if he 
were an angel in disguise. That is, he had a 
feeling akin to reverence for every one who 
entered his presence. We do not know to whom 
we are speaking when we meet a stranger any 
of these common days. Let us treat him as 
the poet did his neighbor — as if he were an 
angel. 

Cardinal Newman defines a gentleman as 
one who never needlessly causes pain to an- 
other. If we are followers of Christ, we have 
no right to be ungentle, to be ill-mannered, to 
act disagreeably, to treat any other one rude- 
ly, brusquely. " If there be any virtue, if 
there be any praise, think on these things." 
We should never forget the teaching of our 
Master, that the hungry person we feed in 
his name, the sick person we visit, the stranger 
to whom we show kindness, the discouraged 
person we encourage, the fainting one we 
lift up and start on his way again, is the 
[24] 



'"€^im on %}^m C]^(ng0" 

Master himself. " Inasmuch as ye did it unto 
one of these my brethren, even these least, ye 
did it unto me." How would we treat Jesus 
if we found him in any condition of need? 
That is to be the test in our dealings with 
men. We dare not be ungentle to any one — 
it may be an angel unaware ; it may be Christ 
himself. 

The teaching applies to our own personal 
experience of sorrow. We should seek the 
line of brightness in any dark picture, and 
think of that. And there always are breaks 
in the clouds through which we can see the 
blue and the stars. No lot in life is ever so 
utterly hopeless as to have in it nothing to 
alleviate its unhappiness. There is always 
something of brightness, one line, at least, 
in the darkest experience. 

" You scarce can wander in a wood so dense at 
night, 
But if the heavens he clear. 
Some trembling star, rejoicing in its grateful 
light. 
Gleams through the atmosphere. 
[25] 



" You scarce can tread a track so sadly dark in 
life, 
But if your heart be right. 
Some kindly hope, benignly beaming o'er your 
strife. 
Illuminates the night,'' 

There always are comforts, no matter how 
great the sorrow. Every cloud has on it some 
bit of silver lining. There are hopes, conso- 
lations, encouragements, in every experience 
of grief or loss, and we are to think of these 
and not alone of the sad elements in the expe- 
rience. One chill day a beam of sunshine, com- 
ing into the parlor through the shutters, 
made a bright spot on the carpet. The little 
dog that had been lying in a dark corner of 
the room got up at once and went and lay 
down in the patch of sunshine. That is what 
we should do in our larger life. When, into 
any darkness or gloom of ours, even the 
faintest ray of light streams, we should ac- 
cept it, and sit down in its brightness. There 
is reason for gratitude in the most bitter ex- 
perience — we should find that and enjoy its 
[26] 



^^Cl^inft on Ci^ejse Cl^ingig" 

brightness. We should turn our eyes from the 
clouds and look at the stars. 

" Live in the sunshine — Ood meant it for you; 
Live as the robins ^ and sing the day through.^ ^ 

Think on the good, not the evil. Think on 
the loveliness, not on the disfigurements. 
Think on the pure, not on the soiled. Think 
on the hopeful things in men, their possibil- 
ities of nobleness, not on their faults. In sor- 
row, find the Face of Christ, and gaze on that 
till you forget your grief. In all life, if there 
be any virtue, any praise, any beauty, any 
joy, think on these things, and it will lift up 
your life into strength, nobleness, divineness. 



[27] 



apellejs, ti^e approtjeD 



[29] 



**0 Sentinel at the loose-swung door of my impetuous lips, 
Guard close to-day! Make sure no word unjust or 

cruel slips 
In anger forth, by folly spurred or armed with envy's 
whips; 

Keep clear the way to-day, 

^^ And Warden of my souVs stained house, where love 
and hate are horn, 
O make it clean, if swept must he with pain's rough 

broom of thorn! 
And quiet impose, so straining ears with world-din 
racked and torn. 

May catch what God doth say'* 



'^ You must live each day at your very best: 
The work of the world is done by few; 
God asks that a part be done by you,' . 



[30] 



CHAPTER THREE 




T. Paul speaks of one of 
his friends as " Apelles, 
the approved." We do not 
know who Apelles was. He 
Is not named elsewhere In 
the New Testament nor 
does he have any place In secular history. 
Yet the distinction which St. Paul gives him 
is suggestive. He had been put to the test 
in some way and had not failed. So he had 
won the title, " Apelles, the approved." 
Every Christian should want to have the ap- 
proval of men. There are Instances, no doubt, 
In which good men have to brave the opposi- 
tion of others and go against their opinions. 
Yet a Christian should seek to make his life 
so beautiful, so consistent, so worthy, so like 
his Master's, that everywhere he shall be well 
spoken of. The religion of Christ is beauti- 
ful. One of the few things said about the 
[31] 



youth and early manhood of Jesus is, that he 
" advanced in wisdom and stature, and in fa- 
vor with God and men.'' It is not said only 
that he advanced in favor with God — that 
would not seem strange to us, since he was 
the Son of God — ^but that he advanced also 
in favor with men. As he grew older his life 
became more winning and attractive,^ his dis- 
position sweeter, nobler, manlier. There was 
nothing austere in him, nothing disagreea- 
ble, nothing that made his neighbors dislike 
him. 

Some persons have the impression that re- 
ligion is not winsome, that it makes one some- 
how uncongenial and less agreeable. But the 
very reverse of this is true. The nearer we 
approach to the perfection of Christ, the 
more will people love us and approve of our 
life. When the religion of any one makes him 
disliked, there is something wrong, not with 
the religion, but with the person's interpre- 
tation of it. If we would win for ourselves 
the honorable designation, " The approved," 
we must see to it that we make our life spot- 
[32] 



less in its beauty and our conduct true to the 
teachings of our Master. 

We are tested in many ways. We are tested 
by temptations. Every one must be tempted. 
Untested strength is not trustworthy. An old 
chronicle tells of a company of men going 
into battle with swords which bent double at 
the first assault. They had not been tried 
and the steel was untempered. Before men 
can be entrusted with sacred interests and 
responsibilities they must be tried. Not 
till we have been proved are we ready for 
service. 

We are tested by our duties. We do not begin 
to realize how much depends upon our faith- 
fulness in the common days. To fail in our 
testing is to come unready to great crises. 
We say God does his own work in the world. 
Yes, but not without us. Our faithfulness is 
essential to the carrying out of the divine 
purposes. There is a story of a blacksmith 
who was busy in his shop near the French and 
German border one snowy night just before 
Christmas. He was very weary, for he had 
[33] 



for ti^e ism %Wq^ 

toiled all the day long. He was standing by 
his forge, looking wistfully toward his hum- 
ble cottage where the lights were shining, and 
where his children were awaiting his home- 
coming. He was at his last piece of work — 
a rivet which it required much care to shape 
properly. This rivet was to hold together the 
metal work of a bridge that was to span the 
river near his forge. The rivet was the key to 
the whole bridge. The blacksmith in his weari- 
ness was sorely tempted to hurry, and to 
skimp his work. It was only a little rivet, 
and was so troublesome to make — why should 
he stay to do it carefully ? But his good angel 
bade him do his best. So he put away the 
temptation and rested not until his work was 
perfectly done. 

Some years later war broke out. A squadron 
of the blacksmith's countrymen were driven 
over the bridge in headlong flight. The bridge 
trembled under the weight. All depended on 
the little rivet — was it secure enough to 
stand the strain? Only the blacksmith's work 
that night stood between the men and de- 
[34] 



struction. The rivet stood the test — the 
blacksmith and his work were approved. 
We do not know what important interests 
may depend some critical hour, years from 
now, on the piece of work we are doing to- 
day, on the honesty and truth we shall build 
into our character to-morrow. Let us do all 
we do so well that the Master and the world 
shall speak of us as the approved. 
The lesson applies also to the cultivation of 
our Christian life and character. Perhaps we 
do not pay enough heed to this matter. We 
confess Christ and take our place among his 
people, and think nothing more is required of 
us. But that is only the beginning. Ten or 
twelve years ago a man gave himself to 
Christ. He was sincere from the first, but 
was only a diamond in the rough. He had 
been brought up in unrefined associations and 
companionships. He had been a profane man, 
a man of quick temper, resentful, of loud and 
uncouth speech, lacking all gentleness and 
tenderness. But this man took Christ into his 
heart and life, with most loving welcome, and 
[35] 



for ti^e OBejst ci^tngjcJ 

he has been marvelously transformed by the 
divine indweUing. His whole nature has been 
changed. His manners have been softened into 
real gracefulness. His temper has been sweet- 
ened. The very tones of his speech have be- 
come quiet and kindly, almost musical. He 
has had but little time in his busy days and 
nights for reading and study, and yet he 
seems now like a man who has received a lib- 
eral education since his conversion. 
This example illustrates the value of spirit- 
ual culture in a Christian. The word "grace" 
means beauty of form, manner and move- 
ment, something pleasing, agreeable, win- 
some. To grow in grace is to grow in spiritual 
beauty. The finer things in Christian charac- 
ter should be cultivated. Some one chided a 
great artist with giving too much time to 
trifles in the finishing of his statues. He would 
spend hours and hours on a small feature. He 
replied, " Little things make perfection, and 
perfection is no trifle." We cannot spend too 
much time or thought on the culture of what 
may seem the smaller elements of Christian 
[36] 



character. In the fourth century b.c. there 
was a great artist named also Apelles. His 
motto is said to have been. Nulla dies sine 
linea^ " No day without a line." Every day 
he must make at least a little progress in his 
art, become a little better painter, do a little 
more beautiful work. Is not this a good motto 
for us who are Christians.^ We never should 
be content with anything less than perfec- 
tion, and in striving to reach perfection we 
should add a line every day. We should never 
allow a day to pass in which we do not be- 
come a somewhat more beautiful Christian. 
For example, in the matter of temper. Per- 
haps there is nothing that mars the beauty 
of more Christian lives than ill temper in 
some of its manifold forms. There is no con- 
fession made oftener than this — " Somehow 
I cannot control my temper." Many good peo- 
ple seem to think that faults of temper are 
not really sins, certainly not grievous sins — 
that they are only little infirmities, not need- 
ing even to be repented of. Then the fact 
that' nearly everybody has the same fault 
[37] 



seems to make it less a fault, scarcely more 
than a common human trait. But let us not 
allow ourselves to be deceived into any such 
minimizing of faulty temper. Think how 
much pain and bitterness are caused every 
day to gentle hearts by bad tempers. Then 
think how outbreaks of temper in others ap- 
pear to you — how unlovely, how unseemly, 
how undivine. That is just the way similar 
outbreaks in you appear to others. If we 
would be approved, we must get this vice of 
ill temper in us transformed into gentle, pa- 
tient lovingness. 

Thought for others is another of the details 
in which Christians should cultivate their 
characters. It is only when self dies and we 
learn to put others in the empty place, that 
we begin truly to live the Christian life. We 
cannot understand to what refinements of love 
the religion of Christ calls us. We are not 
always kind to each other, not always patient 
with each other, not always courteous, not 
always forgiving, not always large-hearted 
and gentle. Sometimes we are fretful, irrita- 
[38] 



, __j 

ble, sensitive, too easily hurt. We speak words 
which are Hke thorns. We doubt and suspect ; 
each other. We are too Hkely to take up an 
evil report against another. If we would be 
among the approved, we must let the sweet- 
ness of love for others in our lives. We ad- 
mire love in others. It warms our hearts to 
find the whole thirteenth of First Corinthians 
in some life. That is the ideal for us. It vexes 
us to find others selfish, suspicious, unforgiv- 
ing, thoughtless, unkind. It vexes others just 
as much to find the same unloving things in 
us. 

1 

■' ^^ Search thine own heart. What painest thee | 
In others J in thyself may heJ^ r 

Again, if we would win the honor of being 
approved by men we must trust God. If the 
religion of Christ stands for anything in the 
lives of those who follow him it stands for 
faith and confidence. We are to be anxious 
for nothing. The meaning of this is that we 
need never doubt nor be afraid. But what is 
the fact.? Are Christians any more trustful 
[39] 



in the presence of danger and want, than 
other people, not Christians, are? Are follow- 
ers of Christ any more confident and joyful 
in time of trouble and loss than other people 
are? Joy is a Christian duty. We are to re- 
joice always. How is it with most Christians? 
What comes of the joy when we suffer pain 
or when we experience loss ? 
There is a story of song birds being brought 
over the sea. There were thirty-six thousand 
of them, mostly canaries. At first, after the 
ship sailed, the sea was calm and the birds 
were silent. They kept their little heads under 
their wings and not a note was heard. But 
the third day out the ship struck a furious 
gale. The emigrants were terrified, the chil- 
dren wailed. Then this strange thing hap- 
pened. As the tempest reached its height, the 
birds all began to sing, first one, then an- 
other, till the whole thirty-six thousand were 
singing as if their little throats would burst. 
Is that the way we Christians do ? When the 
trouble begins, when the clouds of sorrow 
gather and break, when the storm rises in its 
[40] 



fury — do we then begin to sing? If we fully 
understood the covenant of our God and be- 
lieved his promises, should not our song 
break forth in tenfold joy when the tempest 
begins ? But instead, we get frightened at the 
smallest troubles, we fret and grow discon- 
tented when any hope fails. We chafe at lit- 
tle sufferings, we complain and repine, and 
the sunshine dies out of our face and the 
gladness out of our voice. 
No doubt one reason Apelles was called the 
approved was because he trusted God abso- 
lutely. Whatever word he found among the 
promises he received it as one of God's words, 
none of which ever has failed, or ever can fail. 
If we can convince the people of the world 
that we have tried and proved the divine 
words, thousands will want our God, too. 
People who know us will not doubt our sin- 
cerity, nor will they doubt the faithfulness 
and the power of our Christ. When we begin 
to live thus, believing, trusting, rejoicing, 
then people will receive our gospel and we 
shall become approved. 
[41] 



Are we living so as to commend Christ and 
his gospel to all who know us and see us, 
week days as well as Sundays ? We are always 
in the eye of the world. A moment's ill tem- 
per, a bit of selfish living, an angry word, a 
careless act, an unseemly display of pride, of 
greed, of passion, of resentment, sharpness 
in driving a bargain, a little impatience, a 
neglect of duty, the want of obligingness 
toward others, unlovingness shown even tow- 
ard the lowliest — there is nothing so trivial 
that in it we may not either honor or dis- 
honor our Master. 



[42] 



Ci^e Eule of ptact 



[43] 



With eager heart and will on fire 
I fought to win my great desire; 
'^ Peace shall he mine,^' I said^ hut life 
Grew hitter in the endless strife. 

My soul was weary, and my pride 
Was wounded deep; to heaven I cried, 
'^God grant me peace or I must die^'; 
The dumh stars glittered no reply. 

Broken at last, I howed my head, 
Forgetting all myself, and said, 
^^ Whatever comes, His will he done,^' 
And in that moment peace was won. 

— Henry van Dyke. 



[44] 



CHAPTER FOUR 

Ci^e Eule of ptact 




EACE is one of the most 
suggestive words in the 
Bible. It appears in very 
ancient promises as the 
richest and ripest fruit of 
trust in God. It is found in 
the angePs announcement of the birth of the 
Saviour as one of the blessings of his com- 
ing. It is the bequest of the Master to his 
disciples at his leaving them. It runs through 
the Epistles as the greatest of the blessings 
of redemption, peace with Grod, the peace of 
God. 

St. Paul exhorts us to let peace rule in 
our hearts. A marginal reading suggests 
another rendering — " Let the peace of Christ 
arbitrate in your hearts.'' It is to sit on the 
throne and have undisputed sway in our life. 
When, in the circumstances of any day, things 
arise which naturally would trouble us, break 
[45] 



into the calm and composure of our hearts, 
peace is to sit as arbiter, settling all conflicts 
of feeling and bringing all strifes and differ- 
ences to quiet adjustment. 
We are exhorted to let this peace rule. So we 
can hinder its ruling if we will. It cannot 
rule unless we let it. We have the same truth 
everywhere in the Bible — nothing can enter 
our heart and have sway there, unless we let 
it. Christ stands at the door ; he wants to en- 
ter to bless us, but we have to let him in. He 
will never lift the latch of the door with his 
own hand. " If any man open the door, I will 
come in." So it is with peace. It seeks to enter 
our hearts, it wants to rule there, but it will 
not force its way in. We must let it rule. 
Sometimes people are discouraged when they 
find how high is the ideal of Christian life 
in this matter of peace. We must remember, 
however, that while the ideal is high, the at- 
tainment is always progressive. No one be- 
gins with the accomplished ideal. Peace is a 
lesson which has to be learned, and learned 
slowly. In our Lord's wonderful promise he 
[46] 



Ci^e Bule of pmct 



says he will give rest to all who come to him — 
rest as an immediate gift. Then he says, far- 
ther on, that if we will take his yoke upon us 
and learn of him, we shall find rest. The full 
and complete rest has to be learned. We must 
enter Christ's school. We must accept his 
training and discipline. The same is true of 
Christ's peace. When we begin, we find it im- 
possible to let the peace of Christ rule in our 
hearts fully and continually. We go stum- 
bling on our way, making many mistakes. It 
takes years to reach the complete standard. 
But there should be growth every day. Rus- 
kin, in speaking of Christian growth, has this 
suggestive sentence, " He only is advancing 
in life whose heart is growing softer, whose 
blood warmer, whose brain quicker, and whose 
spirit is entering into loving peace." The 
growing spirit is one that is entering more 
and more fully into peace. 
The whole matter of spiritual culture seems 
to be included in this thought. Every day 
should see us advancing, learning more of 
Christ, and growing more and more into the 
[47] 



beauty of Christ. The other day it was said 
of a Christian man, who has been active in 
many forms of usefulness and whose Hfe has 
been full of good deeds, that he is growing 
irritable, that he is getting easily vexed and 
fretted, that he is losing his sweetness of 
temper and is becoming easily provoked. This 
may be the result of ill health. We dare not 
judge another man when we see, or think we 
see, such faults manifesting themselves in his 
disposition. There may be a physical reason 
for this apparent deterioration in spiritual 
life. There are certain conditions of health 
which make it very hard for a man to keep 
sweet. When we see a good man or a good 
woman sensitive, touchy, easily hurt, hard to 
get along with, we must beware that we do 
not think or speak uncharitably of them. 
There may be a reason — ill health, business 
trouble, disappointment, a hidden sorrow. 
God understands, and we must not judge or 
condemn. 

Nevertheless we should mark well the lesson 

that one phase of Christian growth should 

[48] 



Ci^e ISttle of ptacz 



oe this — the spirit entering into more and 
more loving peace. If the peace of Christ is 
ruling at all in our hearts it should rule a 
little more fully to-day than it did yesterday 
and to-morrow than it does to-day. We should 
be growing continually in all that belongs to 
peace. Worry is not only a sin — it is also one 
of the most disfiguring of the vices. It mars 
and spoils the beauty of a life. Discourage- 
ment is a sin, and discouragement hurts a life 
immeasurably. If we have the peace of Christ 
ruling in our hearts we will be getting far- 
ther and farther away from worry every day. 
Peace sweetens the life, sweetens the disposi- 
tion. It puts a stop to discontent, to com- 
plaining ; it makes a man patient with others, 
gentle to all, humble and lowly in his thought 
of himself. Then what does worrying ever ac- 
complish? Does it make the way sweeter, the 
burden lighter? 

" Pve learned as days have passed me, 
Fretting never lifts the load; 
And that worry, much or little^ 
Never smooths an irksome road; 
[49] 



For you know that somehow, always, 
Doors are opened, ways are made; 

When we work and live in patience 
Under all the cross thaVs laid. 

^^ He who waters meadow lilies 

With the dew from out the sky; 
He who feeds the flitting sparrows, 

When in need for food they cry, 
Never fails to help his children 

In all things, both great and sm^ll; 
For his ear is ever open 

To our faintest far-off callJ' 

A recent writer, speaking of the habit of 
worry and of the evil that comes from it, asks, 
in order to test the spirit of Christian lives: 
" What is the effect of your presence in your 
home? Does your look fall like a sunbeam or 
like a shadow across the breakfast table? 
Does your conversation lie like a strip of 
summer sky, or a patch of midnight across 
the family life? Upon what subjects do you 
speak with largest freedom and keenest rel- 
ish — your aches and failures, or the things 
which are beautiful, fine and high? For your 
[50] 



C]^e Mult of peace 



own sake and for the sake of others, you 
ought to bring your soul into a jubilant 
mood. All Christian virtues grow best under 
a sky filled with sun, and the man who per- 
sists in being gloomy, sour and moody, will 
have his home filled at last with weeds, bram- 
bles and briers." 

So we see that the lesson of peace is not a 
mystical and unpractical one, but one that is 
most practical. Our hearts make our lives. If 
we are not learning this lesson, if peace is 
not ruling more and more in our hearts, our 
lives are becoming less and less beautiful. We 
do not ourselves like people who are sour, 
misanthropic and censorious, who are dicta- 
torial, tyrannical, who are not disposed to be 
kindly, obliging and agreeable. And what is 
not beautiful to our eyes in others is not 
likely to be lovely to the eyes of others in 
us. Our religion must be winsome, else it 
is not the religion that Christ teaches us. 
" Whatsoever things are lovely," is one of the 
features which we find in St. Paul's wonder- 
ful picture of true Christian character. 
[51] 



We need to look well, therefore, to the mat- 
ter of the growth of loving peace in our 
life. Wherever it rules in the heart it pro- 
duces beauty in the disposition. It makes the 
/ whole life more and more loving. In horticul- 
L ture they tell us that thorns are only leaves 
/ which through heat or lack of water, or some 
/ other unfavorable conditions, have failed to 
I grow. The thorns which we dislike so would 
have been beautiful leaves but for the hinder- 
ing conditions under which they grew. It is, 
no doubt, true of the things in us which are 
disagreeable — and we all have them — that 
they are perverted or arrested growths. 
God meant them to be lovely qualities in us, 
marks of beauty, adornments to make our 
lives more Christlike. But in some way they 
have been stunted, dwarfed, perverted, and 
in actual life are thorns instead of shining 
leaves. Instead of being benedictions to other 
lives, these marred growths in us hurt them. 
Instead of being leaves to give shade to those 
who seek shelter from the heat, they are 
thorns which pierce, give pain and wound. 
[52] 



Ci^e Mnlt of ptatt 



We need to look well to the culture of our 
lives that in every feature they may be beau- 
tiful, and that we may be blessings to others 
in the largest measure. And in no way can 
we attain such spiritual culture so surely, 
so richly, as by letting the peace of Christ 
rule in our hearts. Peace is the composite of 
all the graces. Love, joy, gentleness, thought- 
fulness, humility, kindness, patience — all are 
blended in peace. The absence of peace in a 
heart produces a life without beauty. Peace 
ruling in the heart gives a life that is full of 
all lovely things. 

Christ wants us to be beautiful. There is a 
little prayer in the Ninetieth Psalm which 
means a great deal — " Let the beauty of the 
Lord our God be upon us.'' God himself is 
beautiful. All moral excellences are in him — 
truth, justice, purity, patience, gentleness, 
long-suffering, love; and the ideal Christian 
life is one in which all these features and 
qualities are found. A Christian ought to 
be gentle like his Master, full of helpful- 
ness, good-tempered, slow to anger, enduring 
[53] 



for ti^e CBejst Ci^tngis 

wrong without resentment, returning good 
for evil, refined and courteous, sincere in his 
friendships, in honor preferring others, hum- 
ble, not seeking his own advancement. As 
Christian people, we should seek to be like 
our Master in all things ; we should be above 
reproach, without blame in all matters, even 
in what may be called the minor moralities. 
Our dispositions should be sweet and our 
conduct in all things so beautiful that all who 
know us, or do business with us, or are asso- 
ciated with us in any capacity, will testify 
to our Christlikeness and will receive from 
their contacts with us touches of blessing and 
of beauty. The way to have such a character, 
such a disposition, is to let the peace of 
Christ have sway in our hearts. 
The trouble with us is that we do not let this 
peace rule in us. Instead, we let a thousand 
other things — cares, disappointments, discon- 
tents, anxieties, fears, doubts, rule and mutiny 
against the rightful heart-ruler. No wonder 
we have so little of the reign of quietness 
and calmness in us. If we would let peace 
[54] 



Cl^e Mult of ptact 



take its place on the throne and control all 
our life, it would soon grow into beauty. 
Then joy would sing its sweet songs wher- 
ever we go. 

We do not begin to realize the blessings that 
a heart truly controlled by the peace of God 
will bring into our life. We do not know the 
possibilities of loveliness of character there 
are in us, if only we would let peace dominate 
everything. We do not dream of the good we 
might do in the world, the comfort we might 
be to others and the cheer and inspiration we 
might give to discouraged ones, those who are 
hard beset and those who are in sorrow, if we 
would let the peace of Christ arbitrate in our 
hearts. We do not know how many souls we 
might win for Christ, how many lives we 
might redeem from low things and evil ways, 
if only the peace of Christ truly dwelt in us, 
transforming us into the beauty of the Lord. 
Nothing so wins others to better things as 
the influence of a sweet, disciplined and ra- 
diant personality. 

Must we go on forever in the unsatisfactory 
[55] 



way in which many of us have been hving? 
Must we still allow our peace to be broken 
by every passing cloud, every fear, every 
shadow? Shall we not set the peace of Christ 
on the throne, allowing it to arbitrate all our 
affairs, and to give its beauty to our dispo- 
sition ? We cannot understand the reason why 
this or that suffering, sorrow or disappoint- 
ment comes into our life. But we do not have 
to understand. God is wiser than we and we 
may leave the whole matter in his hand. That 
will give us peace. 

^^ Drop thy still dews of quietness, 

Till all our strivings cease; 
Take from our souls the strain and stress, 
And let our ordered lives confess 

The beauty of thy peace,' ^ 



[56] 



^imipati^r twiti^ WtaMm 



[57] 



Art thou weary, tender heart? 

Be glad of pain; 
In sorrow, sweetest things will grow, 

All flowers in rain. 
God watches, and thou wilt have sun 
When clouds their perfect work have done. 

— Richard Watson Gilder. 



'^Why do we worry about the years 
That our feet have not yet trod? 
Who labors with courage and trust, nor fears, 
Has fellowship with God. 

" The best will come in the great * To be,^ 
It is ours to serve and wait; 
And the wonderful future we soon shall see, 
For death is but the gate J ^ 



[58] 



CHAPTER FIVE 




O truth means more to us 
In the way of encourage- 
ment and strength than 
the assurance of Christ's 
sympathy. To sympathize 
is to feel with. The Scrip- 
tures tell us that in heaven Jesus Christ is 
touched with a feeling of our infirmities. He 
feels what we are feeling. If we are suffering, 
the thing which troubles us touches him. If 
we are wronged, the wrong pains him. But 
Christ is touched also with a feeling of our 
infirmities. Infirmities are weaknesses. We may 
have no particular sorrow or pain, and yet we 
may have infirmities. A man may not be sick, 
and yet he may be infirm, lacking strength. 
Some men have no sympathy with weakness. 
They show it no consideration. They have no 
patience with those who stumble. They make 
no allowance for those who do their work im- 
[59] 



perfectly. But Jesus has infinite sympathy 
with weakness. One of the qualifications for 
the priestly office in the ancient times was 
ability to sympathize with the people in their 
experiences — " who can bear gently with the 
ignorant and erring." This quality was in 
Christ. He was most patient with weakness, 
most gentle toward all human infirmity. His 
disciples were always making mistakes, but 
he never was impatient with them; he bore 
with all their infirmities. 
There is special reference to temptation when 
sympathy with weakness is mentioned. Christ 
is touched with a feeling of our infirmities, 
for he was tempted in all points like as we 
are. He knows all about temptation. When 
we are in the midst of the struggle and when 
it seems to us we cannot hold out, he sympa- 
thizes with us, and is most gentle toward us. 
If we are in danger of falling, he helps us 
to overcome. 

An English naval officer told a grateful story 
of the way he was helped and saved from dis- 
honor in his first experience in battle. He was 
[60] 



a midshipman, fourteen years old. The vol- 
leys of the enemy's musketry so terrified him 
that he almost fainted. The officer over him 
saw his state and came close beside him, keep- 
ing his own face toward the enemy, and held 
the midshipman's hand, saying in a calm, 
quiet, aff^ectionate way, " Courage, my boy ! 
You will recover in a minute or two. I was 
just so when I went into my first battle." The 
young man said afterwards that it was as if 
an angel had come to him, and put new 
strength into him. The whole burden of his 
agony of fear was gone, and from that mo- 
ment he was as brave as the oldest of the 
men. If the officer had dealt sternly with the 
midshipman, he might have driven him to 
cowardly failure. His kindly sympathy with 
him dispelled all fear, put courage into his 
heart and made him brave for battle. 
It is thus that Christ is touched with a feel- 
ing of our infirmity when, assailed by sud- 
den temptation, we quail and are afraid. He 
comes up close beside us and says, " I under- 
stand. 

[6ii 



" I met a temptation just like yours, that 
tried me very sorely. I felt the same dread 
you feel. I suffered bitterly that day. I re- 
member it. Be brave and strong and your fear 
will vanish and you will be victorious." Then 
he takes our hand and the thrill of his sym- 
pathy and of his strength comes into our 
hearts, dispelling all fear. 
This truth of the sympathy of Christ with 
human weakness has comfort for those who 
strive to live perfectly, and yet are conscious 
of coming short. Our Master sets us an ab- 
solutely flawless ideal. He bids us to be per- 
fect even as our Father who is in heaven is 
perfect. He gives us his own peace. He never 
became anxious about anything. Nothing dis- 
turbed the serenity and composure of his 
mind. No wrong done to him ever vexed him 
or aroused resentment or bitterness in his 
heart. No insult ever ruffled his temper. He 
never dreaded the future, however full it was 
of calamity. He never doubted that God was 
good, and that blessing would come out of 
every experience, however dark it might be. 
[62] 



This peace of Christ is to be ours. We are to 
live as he did, reproducing the quiet, the love, 
the truth, the calmness of Christ in our lives. 
That is the ideal. But after hearing a ser- 
mon on the Christian perfection to which the 
Master exhorts his followers, one person said, 
" I am afraid I am not a Christian. My life 
falls far below the standard. I do not have 
unbroken peace. I am often disturbed in my 
mind and lose control of my feelings and of 
my speech." 

This experience is well-nigh universal. If the 
lesson of perfection were the last word in the 
description of a Christian life, if no one can 
be called a Christian unless he measures up to 
the lofty standard, how many of us can call 
ourselves Christians.? When a critic in the 
presence of Turner complained that a picture 
of his on exhibition was not perfect, the great 
artist said, " Perfect ! You do not know how 
hard that is." When any one complains that 
our lives are not perfect, he does not know 
how hard it is to reach that lofty ideal. 
Here it is that the truth of Christ's sym- 
[63] 



pathy with our infirmities comes in with its 
comfort. Our Master wants us to live the per- 
fect life, but he knows how weak we are, and 
is infinitely patient with us. A writer has said, 
" How many forwardnesses of ours does 
Christ smother? how many indignities does 
he pass by? and how many affronts does he 
endure at our hands, because his love is in- 
vincible and his friendship unchangeable ? He 
rates every action, every sinful infirmity, 
with the allowances of mercy ; and never 
weighs the sin, but together with it he weighs 
the force of the inducement — how much of it 
is to be attributed to choice, how much to the 
violence of the temptation, to the stratagem 
of the occasion, and the yielding frailties 
of weak nature.'' 

Many of the words of Christ reveal his sym- 
pathy with weakness. In that most wonderful 
of all his promises, in which he invites the 
weary to him, promising them rest, he asks 
men to take his yoke upon them and then says, 
" My yoke is easy, and my burden is light." 
It is not a yoke that crushes by its weight. 
[64] 



He never lays upon his followers any burden 
which they cannot bear. His commandments 
are not grievous. He never calls us to any 
duties that we cannot perform. Whenever he 
lays a load upon us, he promises grace to 
carry it. He never suffers us to be tempted 
above what we are able to endure. There was 
never yet a responsibility put upon a Chris- 
tian which was too great for his strength. No 
one ever is called to endure a sorrow which is 
sorer than he can bear. 

Another word which shows his sympathy with 
human infirmities is quoted from one of the 
great prophets as being fulfilled in Christ 
himself : " A bruised reed shall he not break, 
and smoking flax shall he not quench." What 
could be more worthless than a reed bruised, 
trampled in the dust? Yet so gentle is our 
Master that he does not fling aside as of no 
account even so worthless a thing as a shat- 
tered reed. There may be a little life remain- 
ing in it, and so he takes it up tenderly, cares 
for it gently, is patient with it and waits, 
until at length it lives again in delicate 
[65] 



beauty. Or take the other figure: "Smoking 
flax shall he not quench." The lamp has 
burned down so that the flame has gone out, 
and there is only a little curling smoke com- 
ing from the black wick. Does he snufF it out 
and throw it away ? Oh, no ; such frailty ap- 
peals to him. " There may be a spark left 
yet,'' he says, and he breathes upon it, blow- 
ing it, putting oil again into the exhausted 
lamp, and in a little while there is a bright 
flame where there was only off^ensive smoke 
before. 

After the terrible earthquake and fire at San 
Francisco, some children far out in the coun- 
try were gathering up pieces of charred pa- 
per which had been carried by the currents of 
air. Among these fragments they found a 
partly burned leaf of the Bible. A boy found 
it and took it home to his father who 
smoothed it out and read for the first time 
the immortal words, " Now abideth faith, 
hope, love, these three, and the greatest of 
these is love." It was a strange message to 
come out of the great conflagration — strange, 
[66] 



but wonderfully fitting. Everything else of 
beauty and power had gone down in dust and 
ashes, but love remained — that was imperish- 
able, and faith and hope remained. Nothing 
is worth living for but love — God's love and 
the love that it inspires. If we would be rich 
with riches which nothing can take from us, 
we must make larger room in our hearts for 
this love. Christ loves and has infinite com- 
passion for weakness, for infirmity, for life's 
bruised reeds and dimly burning wicks. We 
shall become like Christ only in the measure 
in which we get the same compassion into our 
hearts and are filled with a like sense of the 
weakness in others. 

" Touched with a feeling of our infirmities." 
This wonderful revealing of the heart of 
Christ in his glory should be full of comfort 
to those who with all their striving are un- 
able to reach the perfect ideal. Christ under- 
stands. He sees into our hearts, and he knows 
when we have done our best, though that best 
fall so far below the standard. He knew when 
we tried to keep sweet-tempered in the provo- 
[67] 



cation and irritation to which we were ex- 
posed yesterday, and yet failed, and spoke 
bitterly and impatiently. He knew when we 
wanted to be calm and trustful and to have 
quiet peace in our heart in some time of great 
sorrow, or in some sore loss or disappoint- 
ment. Then when, in spite of our effort, the 
peace failed and we cried out — he knew 
what was due to unbelief in us and what to 
human weakness. We have a most patient 
Master. He is pitiful toward our infirmities. 
He is tolerant of our outbreaks. He is gentle 
toward our failures. Do not say you are not 
a Christian because you have failed so often, 
because you fall so far below what you ought 
to be. Christian life is a long, slow growth, 
beginning with infancy and reaching at last 
up to manhood. 

But is it just to our patient, gracious Mas- 
ter that we remain always children, and never 
grow into full stature? We glory in the sym- 
pathy of Christ with our infirmities, but is 
it worthy of us always to have the infirmities 
and never to become any stronger.? If he 
[681 



would have us accept his peace and learn the 
sweet lesson, is it worthy in us to go on, liv- 
ing a life of fret, discontent, and anxiety, of 
uncontrolled temper and ungoverned moods? 
Should we not try at least to please our Mas- 
ter in all things, even though we may never 
be able to live a single whole day without dis- 
pleasing him in some way? It is the sincere 
effort that he accepts. If he knows that we 
have done our best, he holds us blameless 
though we are not faultless. But we should 
not take advantage of our Master's sym- 
pathy with our infirmities to continue in im- 
perfect living and to keep the infirmities un- 
cured, unstrengthened. 

So let us keep the ideal unlowered — we dare 
not lower it. " Ye therefore shall be perfect, 
as your heavenly Father is perfect,'' stands 
ever as the unmovable mark and goal of 
Christian life. Christ's patient sympathy with 
our failures and weaknesses never brings the 
standard down a single line to make it easier 
for us to reach it. There the ideal stands, and 
we are bidden to climb to it, St. Paul con- 
[69] 



fessed that he had not yet attained to the 
goal, but said he was striving to reach it, 
ever pushing upward with all his energy, ear- 
nestness, and bravery of soul. Let us not in 
cowardly indolence live on forever on life's 
low levels — let us seek to climb to the heights. 
Let us set our feet a little higher every day, 
overcome some weakness, gain some new 
height. 

" Touched with a feeling of our infirmities.'* 
We may not always find sympathy in human 
hearts. Even those who ought to be most pa- 
tient with us may fail to understand us, may 
prove exacting, severe, hard in judgment, 
harsh in blame, bitter in denunciation. But in 
the love of Christ we find infinite compassion, 
sympathy that never fails, never wearies. He 
remembers that we are dust. Only let us ever 
be true to him and always do our best, con- 
fessing our manifold failures and going on 
continually to better things. 



[70] 



pmi^ t^t 'htmth 



[71] 



" Why fret thee, soul. 
For things beyond thy small control f 
But do thy part, and thou shalt see 
Heaven unit have charge of them and thee. 
Sow thou the seed, and wait in peace 
The Lord^s increase.'^ 



Weakness never need he falseness; truth is truth in each 

degree 
Thundered — pealed by God to nature, whispered by my 

soul to thee, 

— Robert Browning. 



[72] 



CHAPTER SIX 




MONG St. Paul's saluta- 
tions to old friends at 
Rome is one to Persis. "Sa- 
lute Persis the beloved, who 
labored much in the Lord." 
There is no other mention 
of this woman in the New Testament. We do 
not know where St. Paul had known her. Her 
whole biography is given in the one little 
sentence. Probably she was obscure, though 
no one who works for Christ is really obscure. 
When we live a pure, true, unselfish life, 
though it be in a most quiet way, we cannot 
know the reach of what we are doing, how far 
its influence may extend, how much good it 
may do, how long it may be talked about. 
Persis labored somewhere, in some quiet way 
for Christ, nineteen hundred years ago. Her 
work was not much talked about then by the 
neighbors, but St. Paul told its story in a 
[73] 



for ti^e ism "Cl^tngjci 

few words and here it stays in immortal 
beauty. 

Centuries ago a little fern-leaf grew in a 
deep valley. Its veins were delicate, its fibres 
tender. But in a little while it fell and per- 
ished. It seemed to have done nothing, to 
have left no impression in the world. But the 
other day a party of geologists were going 
about in the interest of their science. One of 
them with his hammer broke off a piece of 
rock, and there he saw the fern — 

^^ Fairy pencillings, a quaint design^ 
Leafage, veining, fibres, clear and fine; 
And the fern^s life lay in every line. 
So, I think, God hides some souls away, 
Sweetly to surprise us at the last day," 

Persis lived without fame, and when she was 
gone a little while she was forgotten. But we 
open one of the New Testament pages, and 
there the story of her life lies in shining 
beauty. 

Persis is called ^' the beloved.'' We are not 

told why she was so universally beloved. No 

[74] 



pmi^ ti^e l3elot)eD 



doubt her character was beautiful. Every 
Christian woman should seek to be lovely in 
her life. Beauty of face and feature is not 
the highest beauty. There is a story of a girl 
who was so homely that even her mother said 
to her, " You are so ugly that everybody will 
dislike you, and you will have no friends.'' 
The girl accepted the fact of her homeliness 
bravely, without being discouraged by it. " I 
will make my life so beautiful," she said, 
" that people will forget my face." So she set 
herself to cultivate her mind and spirit. She 
opened her heart to receive the fullness of 
Christ's love, until all the graces of the Spirit 
blossomed in her character. She grew so like 
her Master that people no longer thought of 
the homeliness of her face, but only of the 
loveliness of her character, the sweetness of 
her spirit, and the helpfulness of her life. She 
became an angel of goodness in the town 
where she lived. Beauty of face may win ad- 
miration; only beauty of heart, of disposi- 
tion, of character can win love. Persis was 
called the beloved, not because of any merely 
[75] 



fot ti^e ism Ci^tngjs 

physical attractiveness, but because she had 
in her the qualities of heart that made people 
love her. 

A legend tells of the origin of the lovely moss 
rose. Once on a time, an angel came down to 
earth — the angel of flowers. Busied all day^ 
in his ministry here and there, he became 
weary and sought a place to rest, finding 
it under a rose. There he slept and was re- 
freshed. Before returning to heaven he spoke 
to the rose, grateful for the shelter he had 
enjoyed, and offered to bestow upon it some 
new gift of loveliness. So soft green moss 
grew round the stem, making the beautiful 
moss rose, the loveliest of all the flowers. The 
life that gives the most gracious hospitality 
to Christ receives new charms, new gifts of 
loveliness. 

It is said also of Persis that she " labored 
much in the Lord." She was not a beautiful 
saint merely, living in holy seclusion, cherish- 
ing devout feelings and cultivating lovely 
qualities of character; she was a saint who 
sought to do all she could in advancing the 
[76] 



pmi^ t^t OBelotieD 



cause of Christ. She labored, " labored much." 
That is, she was not content to do little easy- 
things for her Master, but was eager to do 
all she could do. 

It is said further that she labored " in the 
Lord." Does this mean that she labored as in 
the atmosphere of Christ's life? St. Paul in 
speaking of God, said, " In him we live, and 
move, and have our being." God is about us 
as the air is, and we live in him as we live in 
the atmosphere that surrounds us. It is said 
that one of the finest orchids in the world is 
found in England, but owing to the inclement 
climate it grows in dwarfed form, destitute 
of beauty, and is of no value. Climate is every- 
thing for fine plants. Spiritual climate is 
everything in the growth of heavenly graces. 
It is a great thing to live and work with the 
very atmosphere of Christ's love about us, 
with the very life of Christ for climate. 
But that is not all that is meant when it is 
said that Per sis labored in the Lord. It means 
that there was such a vital relation between 
Christ and Persis that wherever she spoke, 
[77] 



fox t]^e OBejst m^im^ 

Christ was in her words, that when she loved, 
Christ's love mingled in hers, that whatever 
she did in trying to help, bless and save 
others, Christ's power wrought in and 
through her feebleness, making it effective. 
That is what St. Paul said about himself to 
the Galatians. " It is no longer I that live but 
Christ that liveth in me." A distinguished 
scientific man believes that the seeds of living 
things now growing on the earth were first 
brought to our planet by aerolites, meteoric 
stones. The thought is very beautiful. But 
whether true or not, we are sure that t\^ 
seeds of the beautiful things of spiritual life 
which grow now wherever the gospel has 
gone, the plants and flowers of grace and 
love, have come from heaven, not borne to us 
on meteoric stones, but in the life of Jesus 
Christ. Every true Christian is a new incar- 
nation — Christ lives in him. When it said of 
Persis that she labored much in the Lord, the 
meaning is that she had Christ in her and 
that it was Christ who did the things that 
Persis did. The much labor she wrought for 
[78] 



pmi0 t\^z iBeloted 



Christ was divinely inspired. An old writer 
says — 

" Though Christ a thousand times in Bethlehem 

he horn, 
If he^s not horn in thee, thy soul is all forlorn, 
God^s Spirit falls on me as dewdrops on a rose. 
If I hut, like a rose, my heart to him disclose. 
In all eternity no tone can he so sweet 
As when man^s heart with God^s in unison doth 

heat,'' 

It is when we let Christ live in us and work 
in us and through us that our lives begin 
to tell for God. We cannot be a blessing to 
others until we are blessed ourselves. But 
when Christ lives in us, we cannot but be a 
blessing to every life we touch. There is an 
immense difference between your doing some- 
thing, teaching a lesson, preaching a sermon, 
visiting a sick neighbor, training a child, 
seeking to comfort one in sorrow — between 
your doing the work yourself, and Christ 
doing it in you and through you. In the one 
case it is a piece of beautiful human service ; 
in the other case it is human service filled with 
[79] 



divine love and grace. In the one case, it is 
you working — teaching, preaching, visiting, 
striving to make a life better — in the other, 
it is you and Christ working together. 
There is another' suggestive word in St. 
Paul's salutation. In the same chapter he 
speaks of Tryphaena and Tryphosa " who 
labor in the Lord.'' The tense is present — 
they were still active. But Persis had " la- 
bored." Her working time was over. She was 
still living, for St. Paul sent a kindly saluta- 
tion to her, but she was no longer engaged in 
activities. 

We are not told why Persis had ceased to 
work. Perhaps she was an invalid, unable 
longer to carry on her former activities. Or 
she may have become old and infirm. Some 
people chafe and are greatly discouraged 
when they become broken in health. They used 
to be strong, able for anything, undaunted in 
the presence of the greatest labors, laughing 
in the face of all obstacles. They responded 
to every call of duty with alacrity. They la- 
bored much. Now they can only lie on their 
[80] 



pmi^ ti^e OBelotieti 



bed, or sit in their wheel chair to be rolled 
about — they cannot do any work. It takes 
more grace to keep patient and sweet, to be 
joyous and cheerful, in this broken condition, 
than it required in other days to be busy in 
the field of service. Yet we are no less the 
Lord's servants when we cannot work any 
more than we were when we were most active. 
" They also serve who only stand and wait." 
If standing and waiting are all that we can 
do, we please our Master just as well and 
serve him just as acceptably as we used to do 
when we were most active, that is if we do 
not spoil all by chafing and fretting. Our 
work is not all doing things ; we need also to 
have things done in us. There are lessons to 
learn which perhaps we never could learn if 
in the midst of unhindered activities. Certain 
song birds when they are to be taught a new 
song, are shut away in a darkened room for 
a time, and the song is sung or played over 
and over within their hearing until they learn 
it. May it not be thus with us ofttimes? Our 
Master wants us to learn a new song — the 
[81] 



song of contentment, of peace, of uncom- 
plaining joy, and we are called aside from 
our rushing activity, that in the quiet we 
may get the song into our heart. 
We think the world cannot spare us, that 
things will not go on at all if we cannot go 
back to our place and our activity. We think 
that even Christ's work will suffer if we have 
to withdraw from it. Have you ever taken 
notice of the way the world does when a busy 
man is suddenly called from his desk, stricken 
down, his place left empty .^ Does anything 
stop? Does his withdrawal leave a great un- 
filled gap ? The first day or two there may be 
a little confusion, but in a short while the 
great system of work that he had organized 
and was conducting, and which he and his 
friends thought could not be kept in opera- 
tion without the guidance and skill of his 
master hand, was going on just as before. 
Have you noticed that when some wise and 
active Christian, with hands full of great 
tasks which it was thought no other one could 
do, was called away by death, there was but 
[82] 



ptv^i^ tt)t BelotjeD 



little disturbance or interruption in the prog- 
ress of the work? By the time the friends 
returned from the funeral, all was going on 
in other hands as if nothing had happened. 
We think we are far more important to the 
world, even to our Master's kingdom, than 
we are. 

So we need not vex ourselves about our duties 
when we cannot do them longer — they are not 
our duties at all any more. Yesterday they 
were, and there would have been a blank if 
we had not attended to them. But they are 
not ours to-day, when our hand has no longer 
the strength for them. We should learn the 
lesson of contentment and trust when called 
out of action. Yesterday it was our duty to 
attend to our work ; to-day it is our duty to 
lie still and be quiet, and to keep sweet. In- 
stead of active service, our part now is to 
endure patiently, to cultivate humility, gen- 
tleness, and patience. 

When the Jews celebrate the Feast of Tab- 
ernacles, they make their booths of branches 
so light and thin that they can see the stars 
[8S] 



through them. Through all interruptions 
and disappointments, through all suffering 
or pain, all breaking up of plans, we should 
be sure that the stars be not hindered in their 
shining upon us, into our lives. Nothing 
must shut heaven out of our view. When we 
are called aside from active duty by illness, 
by invalidism or by old age, we should obey 
the Master's new call to come apart and rest 
awhile, and be quiet and still, just as cheer- 
fully as ever we responded to a call to glad 
work and service. When our working time is 
over, the form of duty changes for us — that 
is all. Before, it was diligence and faithful- 
ness in strenuous work; now, it is patience 
and joy in keeping still. The one is just as 
much obedience as the other, and pleases God 
just as well. 

Then we must not think that we are useless 
when we cannot work as we used to do. No 
doubt Persis was doing just as much for the 
honor of Christ, for the upbuilding of his 
kingdom and for the sweetening and enrich- 
ing of the world, in those quiet days when she 
[84] 



pmi0 ti^e l3elotJeD 



was able to labor no more, as she did in the 
days now gone, when she labored much. 
There was a work going on in her in the quiet 
days — she was mellowing and ripening in 
spirit. Then she touched the friends about 
her by her peace, her contentment. If she was 
a sufferer, she suffered in patience, sweetly, 
submissively, songfuUy. Then she could still 
work in prayer, and no work we ever do for 
others is so effective as what we may do on 
our knees. 



[85] 



Ci^ijS QBegtnning of ^(0 ^ignjs 



[87] 



Nothing is small! 
No lily-muffled hum. of summer bee 
But finds some coupling with the spinning stars; 
No pebble at your foot but proves a sphere; 
. . . Earth^s crammed with heaven, 
And every common bush afire with God; 
But only he who sees takes off his shoes, 

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning. 



[88] 



CHAPTER SEVEN 



Cl^ijj isegtnning of !^(0 ^ignis 




HE only miracles of Jesus' 
thirty silent years were 
miracles of love, of obedi- 
ence, of duty, of beautiful 
living. When we remem- 
ber who he was, the Son 
of God, in whom all divine fullness dwelt, his 
making no manifestation of glory those 
years was as great a miracle as when at 
length he began to do unusual things. 
The first recorded appearance of Jesus, after 
entering on his public ministry, was at a wed- 
ding feast. This tells us of his interest in 
human joys. Many people seem to think that 
religion is only for times of sorrow. They say 
that Christ came to help us in our hours of 
pain and in our troubles. But it is sugges- 
tive that his first manifestation of divine 
power was not in healing a sick man, opening 
a blind man's eyes, raising a dead child, but 
[89] 



in. making wine to prolong the joy of a feast. 
He is a friend for our happy hours quite 
as much as for our hours of sadness. Jesus 
wants still to attend the social pleasures that 
the young people have. If we have any feasts 
or entertainments to which we cannot in- 
vite him, they are not fit enjoyments for a 
Christian. 

" The wine failed.'' Earth's pleasures always 
fail. They come in little cups, not in living 
fountains. The failing wine at the wedding 
feast is an emblem of every joy that is only 
human. It lasts a little whik and then the cup 
is empty. Human love is very sweet. But if 
there is nothing but the human it will fail 
some time. 

The record says that in this first miracle 
Jesus manifested his glory. The glory was 
no diviner when it took the form of power 
and wrought a miracle than it was when un- 
revealed. During the thirty years the divine 
life in Christ revealed itself in what no one 
regarded as supernatural — in the beautiful 
life that grew up in that home, with its at- 
[90] 



Ci^ijs ^Beginning of f (0 ^tgnjs 

tention to daily tasks and duties. The neigh- 
bors did not think of his gentleness of spirit, 
his graciousness of disposition, his purity 
and simplicity of life as revealings of divine 
glory in him. Then that day at Cana the 
glory was manifested, flashed out so as to be 
seen. 

We do not begin to be aware of the divine 
glory that is about us all these common days. 
We say there are no miracles now. In the life 
of Christ there were countless simple and 
beautiful deeds wrought continually. During 
that marriage feast Jesus probably was the 
life of the company. He was unselfish. If 
there was a bashful person among the guests, 
Jesus was specially kind to him. If there was 
one whom all the others neglected, Jesus took 
an interest in him. If there were any sad or 
sorrowing ones in the company, Jesus sought 
them out and spoke words of cheer and com- 
fort to them. There is no doubt that his pres- 
ence was a benediction to all the guests at the 
wedding. But nobody thought of these com- 
mon kindnesses as miracles. Then next hour 
[91] 



he changed water into wine, and instantly all 
were amazed and saw in this an evidence that 
he was divine. 

What is glory? It means power, splendor, 
greatness, honor. What was the glory that 
this particular miracle manifested? For one 
thing it showed Christ's power over nature. 
There were several of these nature miracles. 
With a few loaves he fed a multitude of 
hungry men. Here he provides wine for 
the company of wedding guests. He showed 
his power over the elements by quieting the 
storm and stilling the waves of the sea with 
a word. He was perfectly at home in all the 
fields of nature. There ought to be great 
comfort for us in these truths. Our Master 
is master of all things. This is his world. 
But the miracle meant more than this. Why 
was this miracle wrought? Not to make a 
display of the power of Christ. Not merely 
to show his disciples that he was divine. 
Every miracle he wrought was wrought as 
an act of mercy or love. This beginning of 
signs was simply a beautiful deed of com- 
[92] 



%^i^ oaegfnnfng of i^ijs ^im^ 

mon kindness. Some one calls this the house- 
keeper's miracle. It was a most embarrassing 
situation. In the midst of the feast the wine 
failed. There were more guests than were ex- 
pected, and there was not enough wine to 
serve them all. The host would have been dis- 
graced if there had been no way of adding to 
the too meagre supply. Jesus, by manifesting 
his power, relieved the awkwardness of the 
occasion. He wrought the miracle, primarily, 
for the sake of the host, to save him from 
mortification. 

There are those who think it dishonoring to 
our Master to say that he has a care for the 
little frets and worries of a poor family, or 
that he is concerned in the small affairs of a 
common household. They think his glory 
lifts him above all such trivial things. But 
there really is no perplexity too small to take 
to him. He manifested his glory here in just 
this — his thoughtful kindness. 
We know that the divinest thing in this world 
is love. That in God which is greatest is not 
power, not the shining splendor of deity, but 
[93] 



fox ti^t OBejst Ci^mg^ 

love, which shows itself in plain, lowly ways. 
When the disciples came to the Master, say- 
ing, " Show us the Father," they were think- 
ing of some brilliant display, some revealing 
of God which would startle men. Jesus re- 
plied, " Have I been so long with you and yet 
have you not known me ? " He meant that the 
truest revealing of God to men is not in 
great theophanies, but in a ministry of gen- 
tleness, helpfulness, and kindness, such as 
Jesus had wrought through all the years. 
Mrs. Browning tells us that nature is full of 
the glory of God. Every common bush is afire 
with God for those who have eyes to see the 
brightness. But the truth is that most of us 
have no eyes for the splendor. Here and there 
is one who, in the presence of God's reveal- 
ing, takes off his shoes in reverence. But peo- 
ple in general see nothing of divine glory, 
and only " sit round and eat blackberries." 
The woman at the well was disposed at first 
to treat trivially the weary man who sat on 
the well curb and asked her for a drink of 
water. Then Jesus told her that if she only 
[94] 



KW beginning of 1$i^ ^tgitjs 

knew who it was that was talking to her she 
would ask of him the largest blessings of 
grace. We all rob ourselves continually of 
untold blessings which might easily be made 
ours if we knew the Christ who is always so 
near to us. 

Jesus changed water, common water, into 
wine. He is able to work like miracles con- 
tinually in our lives. Many of us do not at- 
tain the best in any phase or department of 
our life. We get only common water, which 
our Lord would make into rich wine, if we 
would accept the miracle at his hands. To 
many business men, business is only busi- 
ness, very earthly business at that. If only 
they would let Christ make it over for them, 
business would become as holy, as beautiful, 
as sacred, as a communion service. St. Paul 
teaches us to do all things in the name of 
Christ. If we would do this, all our secular 
affairs, as we call them, would become as holy 
as angel ministries. Jesus himself was a work- 
ingman for many years. But we know there 
was nothing sordid about his work. He did it 
[95] 



all for God, and he made each piece of it 
beautiful enough to show to God at the close 
of the day. 

We do not get the best out of our friend- 
ships. How many of us lift them up into any- 
thing like what the friendship of Jesus and 
John, or Jesus and Mary, must have been.? 
How many of us who are friends, kneel often 
side by side and pray together.? Do not most 
of our friendships run along on very com- 
mon levels.? Jesus is able to work his miracle 
on these friendships of ours, changing the 
water into wine, making them into divine fel- 
lowships. 

We do not get the best out of our Christian 
life. We join a church, but we do not allow 
the church to enter deeply into our life or to 
mean much to us. We do not allow the Mas- 
ter to possess us wholly, body and soul. We 
do not discover the possibilities of prayer. 
We do not have the Holy Spirit in our hearts 
as guest in an absorbing measure. The other 
day a man was apologizing for something he 
had done, something that was not beautiful. 
[96] 



^-W I3e9tnnin5 of i^tjs ^ignjs 

He said he was one of those " diamonds in 
the rough " with which Christ could not do 
much. He never could be made into a sweet, 
happy, lovely Christian, he said. He thought 
he was more like Peter than John. He was re- 
minded that even Peter, with all his original 
faults and roughnesses, became at length a 
noble and Christlike man. At first, during his 
training, he was rash and Impetuous, and 
talked too much, but he was always sorry for 
his mistakes and then grew out of them. It 
will not do to hide behind Peter, when our re- 
ligion lacks in beauty, unless, like Peter, too, 
we leave our faults behind and grow in grace 
and loveliness. 

There are some professing Christians whose 
life is not beautiful. In St. Paul's wonderful 
cluster of " whatsoevers," summing up the 
qualities which should find their place in 
Christian character, there are two which 
never should be wanting — " whatsoever 
things are lovely," and " whatsoever things 
are of good report." It is not enough to be 
true, just, and honest — these sturdy elements 
[97] 



fot ti^e ism Ci^tngis 

are essential, but our lives must also be beau- 
tiful, and what people say about us must be 
such as shall honor the holy name we bear. 
Some people are honest but crabbed. They 
do good deeds, but do them in a most ungra- 
cious way. They attend meetings and talk a 
great deal about religion, freely criticising 
other Christians, but are not winsome them- 
selves, not humble, though they praise hu- 
mility, nor devout, though they talk much 
about other people's undevoutness. There 
are some good men whose lives are really full 
of good works, who will go miles to do a kind- 
ness, who are faithful in all personal duties, 
who never omit prayer or church attendance ; 
but whose influence as Christians is far from 
sweet and winning. They are like certain 
nuts which have a meaty kernel, but a prickly 
burr. When they do you a favor you almost 
wish they had not, they hurt you so in doing 
it. 

This miracle suggests to us that Christ can 

make our life richer and more beautiful, if 

we will put it into his hands, that if we live 

[98] 



m^i^ l^eginntng of i^ijs ^ig,m 

with him as we may, our characters will grow 
every day into greater sweetness and loveli- 
ness. A Christian man has no right to be hard 
to get along with. Even if other people are 
unlovely in spirit, he must be lovely. If 
others are selfish, he must be unselfish. If 
others are rude, he must be refined. We 
should set for ourselves the highest ideal of 
beauty, and then strive to reach it. " Let not 
your good be evil spoken of." Do your gra- 
cious deeds graciously. Make your honesty 
and truth beautiful. Take care that your zeal 
is not censorious and uncharitable. Let your 
earnestness be gentle and kind. Judge not 
that ye be not judged. Speak evil of no man 
— leave his faults to his Master. Look after 
yourself, your own flaws and motes and 
beams — you will have quite enough to do— 
and let Christ be the judge of other people's 
faults. Strive to be the sweetest, truest, no- 
blest, holiest, most useful Christian you can 
be, and do not talk about it. " Moses wist not 
that his face shone." 
The picture of the life of Charles Kingsley. 

[ 99 ] 

uvtu 



for ti^e Be0t Cl^ingjS 

which his wife has given in her " Letters and 
Memories " of her husband is one of the fin- 
est groupings of the quahties of an ideal hf e 
in all literature : 

Dedicated to the beloved memory of a righteous 

man 
Who loved God and truth above all things. 
A man of untarnished honor — 
Loyal and chivalrous — gentle and strong — 
Modest and humble — tender and true — 
Pitiful to the weak — yearning after the erring — 
Stern to all forms of wrong and oppression^ 
Yet most stern towards himself — 
Who^ being angry, yet sinned not — 
Whose highest virtues were known only 
To his wife, his children, his servants, and the 

poor ; 
Who lived in the presence of God here, 
And passing through the grave and gate of death 
Now liveth unto God for evermore. 

Shall we not seek and pray that this begin- 
ning of his signs the Master may work in us ? 
Then we shall have the same glory in us that 
was also in him. We need not ask for power 
to work miracles, but let us beseech God for 
[ 100 ] 



Cl^tjs 15egtnnin8 of i^ijs ^ignjj 

glory in our hearts and lives — the glory of 
love, of gentleness, of truth, of patience, of 
thoughtfulness, of kindness, of forbearance, 
of humility, of helpfulness. Then the glory 
of our life will be manifested, not in an 
occasional flash of surpassing heroism, self- 
denial, generosity, effort, or sacrifice, but in 
a daily life of unbroken goodness, faithful- 
ness and holiness. 



[101] 



Ci^rtjSt in ^ux tUvv J^a^js 



[103] 



" We must buy and sell in the markets ^ we must earn our 

daily bread. 
But just in the doing of these usual acts, may the soul 

be helped and fed. 
It is not by keeping the day^s work and the day's prayer 

separate so, 
But by mixing the prayer with the labor that the soul is 

taught to grow. 

'^ For sweeping a room by God's law, is a service he 

deigns to bless. 
And mending a kettle worthily, is working for him no 

less 
Than steering steady the ship of state, or wielding the 

sword in war, 
Or lifting the soul of man by songs to the heights where 

the angels are.'' 



[ 104 ] 



CHAPTER EIGHT 




NE of the later Old Testa- 
ment prophets predicts a 
coming golden age when 
the bells of the horses 
shall be as sacred as the 
garments of the high 
priest, and the common cooking utensils in 
the people^s homes as holy as the vessels of 
the temple. St. Paul teaches this lesson when 
he says, " Whatsoever ye do, in word or in 
deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus.'* 
This covers all our acts and all our words. It 
applies to our Bible-reading, but not less to 
our other reading. We must read our morn- 
ing newspaper, our Tennyson, our school 
text-books, in the name of the Lord, so as to 
honor him and to get knowledge that will add 
to the beauty and the strength of our life. 
We are to pray in the name of the Lord 
Jesus, but we are also to go to our busi- 
[ 105 ] 



ness in the same blessed name. We regard 
the Lord's house as holy^ and say that 
we should do nothing in it but that which 
is reverent, which yields honor and praise 
to God. True ; but the house we live in is 
sacred also, and nothing ever should take 
place in it which would not be fitting and 
proper to do in the presence of Christ him- 
self. 

We think of certain acts as worship and as 
we enter upon them we hear a voice saying, 
" Take off thy shoes from off thy feet, for 
the place whereon thou standest is holy 
ground.'' But where is God not present .^^ 
Where shall we go any common day that it 
is not holy ground? There may be no burn- 
ing bush, but God is there as really as he was 
when Moses came suddenly upon the symbol 
of his presence in the desert. We believe that 
we are doing good work when we are teach- 
ing a Sunday-school class ; are those doing 
God's work any less truly who on week days 
teach classes of little children or young peo- 
ple in public or private schools? We con- 
[106] 



sider it a most sacred duty to sit down at 
the Lord's Table, at the service of the Holy 
Communion ; but have you ever thought that 
there is also a sacredness scarcely less holy in 
sitting down together at our family meals? 
In the ideal religion, the bells on the horses' 
bridles are holy unto the Lord as well as the 
high priest's garments ; and the pots used in 
the people's houses are as sacred as the ves- 
sels used in the temple. 

When we learn this lesson, Christian life will 
have its true meaning and glory for us. 
Nothing will then appear commonplace. We 
will never think of our occupation as lowly, 
for the lowliest work, if it be God's will for 
us for the hour, will be heavenly in its splen- 
dor, because it is what we are set by our Mas- 
ter to do. Our God is not only the God of the 
sanctuary and the solemn worship — ^he is 
just as much the God of the workshop, the 
factory, the sewing-room and the kitchen. 
We please him just as well when we live 
sweetly and do our work faithfully in the 
lowly place, amid temptation, care and weari- 
[107] 



for tl^e 13ej5it Ci^fng^ 

ness, as we do when we honor and worship 
him at the communion. 

We think we are in this world to attend to a 
certain business, to perform certain profes- 
sional duties, to look after certain household 
affairs, to be a carpenter, a stonemason, a 
painter, a teacher, a housekeeper — we call 
these our vocations. But as God thinks of 
us we are in these occupations to grow into 
noble and worthy character. While we are 
making things, God is making men. With 
him a carpenter shop is not merely a place 
for making doors, sashes and banisters, and 
for planing boards — it is a place to build 
character, to make men. A home is not merely 
a place for doing beautiful housekeeping — 
it is a place to develop fine womanhood. 
Dr. R. F. Horton, of London, has suggest- 
ed that the names of the days should be 
changed, since they are all called by ancient 
heathen names. He would have them renamed 
after great and good Christian men. It may 
not be possible to do anything of this kind, 
but it ought to be possible for every Chris- 
[ 108 ] 



Cl^ri^t in €>ut: €Uvv H^^v^ 

tian to write the name of Christ at the head 
of every day. Some people seem to think that 
if they keep the Lord's day white and holy 
in a fashion, they may stain Monday and the 
other week days with all manner of evil. But 
we are learning that Monday belongs to God 
as truly as Sunday. The ancient command- 
ment reads, " Remember the Sabbath day, 
to keep it holy." The new commandment, 
however, reads, " Remember the week days, 
to keep them holy." 

The true Christian consecration will make 
all business holy. It has been said that the ap- 
plication of the Ten Commandments to busi- 
ness and to politics is only an iridescent 
dream, something entirely impossible. Never- 
theless, there the commandments stand, given 
not for Sundays only, but for week days as 
well ; not for the quiet life of the home alone, 
but just as truly for the marts of trade, for 
the mill, the factory, the shop, the counting- 
room. " Do not trouble yourself too much," 
said Michael Angelo to a young sculptor who 
was anxious about the light for the proper 
[109] 



for ti^e "Be^t Cl^ingjs 

exhibition of his piece of statuary, " do not 
trouble yourself too much about the light on 
your statue; the light of the public square 
will test its value." It would be easy in the 
studio to pose the marble so as to bring out 
its fine qualities and conceal its faults ; but 
the statue will have to be set up on the street 
by and by, and there no posing, no arrange- 
ment of light and shade will hide its defects. 
It is not enough that in the church on Sun- 
day men appear good, true, honest and de- 
vout. Our Christian profession must stand 
the light of the street, of the public square. 
We must have our honesty tested in our busi- 
ness transactions, our truthfulness tried and 
proved in our common intercourse with men, 
our devoutness of manner subjected to the 
sneers and profanities of ungodly people. 
Jesus himself gave as the rule of his life, " I 
do always those things that please him — my 
Father.'' Every friend of Christ should be 
able to say the same thing. All who bear 
Christ's name should live so carefully in their 
business affairs that no reproach ever shall 
[110] 



come back to the name of the church from 
anything any of them may do during the 
week, in their common work. It never should 
be said of any of them, " He is an enthusias- 
tic Christian on Sunday, but on Monday he 
drives sharp bargains, he takes advantage of 
others, he does not pay his debts, he is not 
honest, he oppresses the poor, he does not 
live a clean, pure life.'' Ruskin found on 
a church in Venice these words engraved, 
" Round this temple let the merchant's 
weights be true, his judgments just, his 
contracts without guile." This is a good 
motto for all Christian men in their business 
affairs. 

Even the play and the amusement of a Chris- 
tian are part of his Christian life. They must 
be as holy as his devotions. We need not wear 
long faces. Nor need we condemn pleasure. 
The Master did not. His first public act after 
his baptism and temptation was to attend 
a wedding feast and we know he cast no 
shadow over the gladness and festivity of 
that occasion. He smiled on the children's 

[111] 



play — they never were afraid of him, did not 
run and hide when they saw him coming, as 
some children used to do when they saw the 
minister riding up to their house. He was not 
like the Pharisees who posed as saintly and 
made their religion unbeautif ul and unwin- 
some. He wants us to be happy, to have his 
joy fulfilled in us. But our pleasure, our 
amusement, must always be pure, holy, un- 
selfish — sacred as our worship. 
Some one gives this singular definition: 
" Temperament — an excuse for character." 
A man is gloomy and pessimistic, and he 
blames it on his temperament — he was born 
that way. One person always sees faults and 
disagreeable things in people and in circum- 
stances, and excuses himself for this un- 
happy characteristic on the ground of tem- 
perament. Another man has a fiery temper 
which flares up on the slightest provocation. 
He received the Holy Communion on Sunday, 
and then on Monday was seen in a terrible 
rage. " It is my temperament," he says, " I 
can't help it." 

[112] 



€\^ti^t in. f^m Ctiett ?^a^js 

All of which is pure fiction. Temperament is 
no excuse for faulty character, for unchris- 
tian disposition, for ungoverned tempers. 
Because we are Christ's we must see that we 
never dishonor his name by such outbursts. 
He is always with us and is grieved when we 
fail to keep our lives holy. What did you do 
yesterday out among people.? How did you 
treat those with whom you work.? What 
beauty of Christ did you show in your con- 
duct, in your disposition, in your behavior.? 
What patience did you exercise? What 
thoughtfulness did you manifest.? What un- 
kindness did you endure quietly.? What ris- 
ing anger did you restrain.? Was your day 
full of words, acts and dispositions that were 
as holy as a prayer .? 

One asks: "Do we want to know ourselves.? 
Then let us ask every day : ' How have I met 
the drudgery of my regular work? How have 
I treated those who work beside me or who 
have claims upon me.? How have I kept my 
temper over little worries .? How often have I 
looked to God and toward high ideals .? What 
[113] 



for tl^e ld>m Ci^ingjs 

thoughts have been my companions ? ' Here 
are the real, accurate tests of character. 
They do not give us an easy time of it. But 
they are true. According as the answers to 
them are satisfactory or not we are growing 
or weakening in character and becoming fit 
— or unfit — for the revealing crisis when it 
comes." 

Home tests us. It ought not to be so, but 
perhaps no other place tests our Christian 
consecration more severely than our home. 
Its very sweetness seems to free us from the 
restraint we feel in the presence of stran- 
gers. Those who do not love us would not 
endure the words and acts which we some- 
times compel our dearest to bear from us. It 
is pitiful to think how often those who stand 
for Christ in his church, and who elsewhere 
witness a good confession for him, in their 
own homes seem to feel themselves absolved 
from all the courtesies and amenities of love, 
even of good manners. 



[114] 



^^ Studied J folded, and laid away 
Manners too fine for every day ! 
The graceful how and the gentle touch 
That cost so little and mean so much; 
The smile that charms like the rare perfume 
Of a rose-jar hid in a shadowy room; 
The song from the twilight nook apart 
That finds its way to a burdened heart; 
The yielding of self and of selfish ends, 
Reserved for the plaudits of transient friends: 
This — this — the cruel sneer provokes — 
'Anything goes with one^s own folks.' ^' 

It ought not to be hard to love our own and 
to show our love to them in all sweet and gen- 
tle ways. Surely we ought to take to our own 
love's best. Yet Christians, those bearing the 
name of Christ, have been known to go right 
from the Holy Communion to their own 
homes and instantly to break out in bitter 
words, in carping and criticism, in blame and 
faultfinding, in ill temper and disgraceful 
accusations. If there is any place in this 
world which should be holy to us, which 
should be like the very house of God to us, 
sacred as the Lord's Supper, and which 
[ 115 ] 



for tl^e iBejst Ci^tnfijsi 

should call out our deepest reverence, our 
warmest love, it is our own home. If we are 
Christians anywhere in this world, let it be 
in our own home, where we are so loved and 
trusted. If we must be sullen, bitter, gloomy, 
selfish and sour, somewhere, let it not be 
where our loved ones wait for us and where 
their hearts cry out for tenderness. 
One of the most pathetic sentences George 
Eliot ever wrote is this : " Oh, the anguish of 
the thought that we can never atone to our 
dead for the stinted affection we gave them, 
for the little reverence we showed to that sa- 
cred human soul that lived so close to us, and 
was the divinest thing God had given us to 
know.'' Let us not fail to make our home life 
sacred and holy. If even on the bells of the 
horses we write, " Holy unto the Lord," let 
us not neglect to make the home in which we 
dwell, pray, live and love, a fit place for 
Christ to tarry in, a sweet and gentle place 
for our dear ones to grow up in. 



[116] 



?^o(n8 3ImpojijJ(ble Cl^ingjJ 



[117] 



^'Here let us pause,-' he said. 

At peep of dawn; 
^^Nay, comrade, let our tread 

Lead up and on! " 

^^Here let us pause f he cried, 
When noontide shone; 

^' Nay, comrade, let our stride 
Lead up and onf 

^^ Here let us pause! '' — his gaze 

The night upon; 
^' Nay, comrade, let our ways 

Lead up and on! " 

'^Here let us pause!'' — hearty 

Till life he gone, 
Ever the braver part 

Leads up and on! 



[118] 



CHAPTER NINE 




E too easily set limits to 
our own ability. We do 
not know our own power. 
We face a difficulty and 
think we cannot master it, 
and do not try. Any of us 
might accomplish a great deal more than we 
do. Jesus said, " All things are possible with 
God." The preposition " with " is the key to 
the meaning of this saying. Many persons 
take the words to mean only that God can 
do everything, that nothing is impossible to 
him. But what Jesus says is that a man with 
God can do impossible things. We know that 
God is omnipotent. Job said, " I know that 
thou canst do all things, and that no pur- 
pose of thine can be restrained." It gives us 
confidence, in the midst of dangers, in the 
face of enemies, or when troubles are about 
us, to know that God is stronger than the 
[119] 



strongest. " If God is for us, who is against 
us ? " When we have some duty to do which 
is too hard for us with our Kttle power, it 
gives us immeasurable comfort to know that 
God can do it. Yet God does not do our duty 
for us. 

But we are coworkers with God. We cannot 
do our hard tasks ourselves, neither will God 
do them for us — God and we must do them. 
Nothing is impossible to one who works with 
God. So we may not indolently roll the re- 
sponsibility of hard tasks and duties off our 
shoulders, even upon God. Whatever is given 
to us to do, we must accept and must accom- 
plish. We have nothing to do, however, with 
the question of ability. Back of us is all the 
strength of the mighty God, and with this 
we can do the impossible if it is God's will 
for us. 

Many of the miracles of Christ are illustra- 
tions of this truth. He did not do for any 
one by divine power what the person could 
do with his own strength. He did not himself, 
by an act of his own, change the young rul- 
[ 120 ] 



er's heart; he bade him voluntarily to give 
up his money, which he loved, and follow him. 
If he had done this Christ would have entered 
his heart and changed it. When Jesus healed 
the man with a withered arm, he did not put 
life into the arm as it hung helpless by the 
man's side. He bade him stretch it forth, re- 
quiring him to use his own power of will. 
When he did this the arm became strong. To 
the man himself the restoring of the arm was 
impossible; but to the man with God it be- 
came easily possible. 

It was impossible for the disciples to feed 
the hungry multitude on the hillside. Yet 
Jesus said, " Give ye them to eat." It was an 
impossible duty therefore to which he set 
them. Yet they set about to obey his com- 
mandment as if it had been some easiest thing 
to do. They did not say, " Master, we cannot 
do it." They simply began to do what he told 
them to do. Then as they began to carry the 
bread to the people, it increased and con- 
tinued to increase, until all the five thousand 
were satisfied. 

[m] 



for t\^t OBejst Ci^ingjS 

Thus are we coworkers with God in all our 
life, in all our duties, in all our struggles. We 
cannot do these things ourselves. " With men 
it is impossible." But, on the other hand, God 
does not do the things for us. "All things are 
possible with God." That is, all things are 
possible for us, with God. This is a most 
practical teaching. To each of us the Master 
gives a work which is altogether our own. 
No one can evade his own personal responsi- 
bility. Neither can any one say, " I cannot 
do anything." You cannot alone, but with 
God, that is, working with God, there is 
nothing that is impossible to you. This is not 
your work, it is not God's — it is yours and 
God's. 

It is by faith that we thus become coworkers 
with God. While Jesus and three of his dis- 
ciples were on the Transfiguration Mount, 
a story of pitiful failure was being enacted 
at the foot of the mountain. A father had 
brought his epileptic son to the disciples 
during the night, asking them to cure him. 
The disciples tried, but could not do it. 
[ 122] 



When Jesus came down in the morning, the 
father brought the son to him. " If thou 
canst do anything, have compassion on us 
and help us," cried the father, in his distress. 
The " if " revealed the weakness of the man's 
faith. Nothing could be done for. the boy 
while this " if " remained in the father's 
heart. Even Jesus, with his divine power, was 
balked in healing by the "if." "If thou 
canst ! " Jesus replied. " All things are pos- 
sible to him that believeth." Jesus could not 
do anything for the boy save through the 
father, and before the father could do any- 
thing the doubt must be taken out of his 
heart. 

This incident has serious teaching for par- 
ents. Something is wrong with your child. 
It may be sickness, or it may be evil in some 
form. You bring the child to Christ, while 
your faith is small. You tell him your heart's 
burden of distress or anxiety, and then you 
say, " O Master, if thou canst do anything, 
have compassion on us and help us." But your 
" if " tells of faltering faith. The blessing is 
[ 123] 



for tl^e 3eist %\^inq^ 

within your reach, but it cannot yet come to 
your child because of your lack of faith. " If 
thou canst believe ! " the Master answers in 
yearning love. " All things are possible to 
him that believeth.'' The healing, the help- 
ing, waits for faith in you. 
There is more of this story. Jesus healed the 
boy. Then when the disciples were alone with 
him they asked him, " How is it that we could 
not cast it out.^ '' Jesus answered, " Because 
of your little faith." Think of the impotence 
of these nine men ! They tried to cast out the 
demon, but it defied them. Yet they need not 
have failed. They ought to have been able to 
cast it out. They had received Jesus as the 
Messiah. They loved him, they believed on 
him. But their faith was weak. Look at the 
case. Nine friends of Christ, disciples, too, 
ordained to do great things, baffled now, 
balked, failing to do a work of mercy be- 
cause their faith was too little! Blessing, 
healing, kept from a poor distressed boy, 
because a company of Christ's friends had 
not faith enough ! 

[ 124 ] 



There is something starthng in this when 
we begin to apply it to ourselves. We are 
Christ's, we love Christ, we follow him, we 
profess to believe on him, we are banded to- 
gether for his service. About us are many 
who do not know their Lord, who have had 
no experience of his goodness. If these are 
to receive the blessing of Christ's love and 
grace, it must be through us. Do we never 
stand in the presence of great human needs, 
as the disciples did that night at the foot of 
the mountain .f^ Do we ever fail to give help, 
to cure, to restore, to comfort, because of 
our little faith .^^ Is there danger that Christ 
himself shall not be able to do mighty works 
of blessing in our community because of our 
unbelief? He will not do the mighty works, 
the gracious works, without us. We need not 
go to him in prayer when we come upon some 
great need — a man in the grip of tempta- 
tion, a woman in deep sorrow, a child in dis- 
tress, a soul unsaved — and ask him to do the 
work of love and grace. He says at once to 
us, " Go you and do it, and I will work with 
[ 125 ] 



you." We must do the work — he will not do 
it without us, and if we do not do it, Christ's 
work in that case will fail, and the respon- 
sibility will be ours. At Nazareth it was said 
that Jesus could not do many mighty works 
because of the unbelief of the people. The 
suffering in the town went uncomforted and 
unrelieved because of the unbelief of the 
rulers. Is anybody going unhelped, uncom- 
forted, unsaved about you, because your 
faith is so small, because there is no hand the 
Master can use.f^ 

What is the faith that has such power.? It is 
the faith that so enters into Christ that it 
takes up into itself all the life of Christ, all 
that he is. It makes us one with him, so 
that where we are he is, his Spirit flowing 
through us. " Because I live, ye shall live 
also," said the Master. St. Paul puts it in a 
wonderfully vivid way when he says, " It is 
not I that live, but Christ living in me." 
This faith makes Christ and his friend not 
two, but one. It is this which enables him 
who believes to do impossible things. St. 
[U6] 



Paul says, " I can do all things in him that 
strengtheneth me." 

The standard of character which our Master 
sets for his followers is full of impossibili- 
ties. Did you ever seriously try to live the 
Sermon on the Mount for a week, or even for 
a day? Did you ever try to live the Beati- 
tudes? If you did, you know how impossible 
these reaches of requirement seem. But when 
Christ enters into us and begins to live in us, 
we find that it is possible to begin to live out 
these impossible things. 

Impossible things are expected of a Chris- 
tian, just because he is a Christian. Any- 
body can do possible things. Possible things 
are the things of the ordinary natural life. 
It requires no heavenly grace, no divine 
strength, no superhuman skill, to do possible 
things. But the Christian should do impossi- 
ble things, should live a life of truth, purity, 
and holiness, as far above the world's stand- 
ard and reach as the sky is above the moun- 
tains. He should live a life of love, so pa- 
tient, so thoughtful, so self-denying, that it 
[127] 



shall prove in the eyes of all who see it im- 
measurably above this world's ideals of life. 
But we are satisfied with too low standards 
of Christian life. We are not as good as we 
ought to be. We are not as good as we might 
be. We are not doing the impossible things 
which our Master expects of us. Sometimes 
we read of heroi&ms wrought on mission fields. 
The careers of many missionaries are sub- 
lime in their faith, in their devotion, in their 
courage, in their readiness to lay down their 
lives for Christ. Our hearts are thrilled when 
we read the story of these faithful witnesses. 
They do impossible things, such things as 
none but Christians can do, because Christ is 
in them. He said, " Go, make disciples of all 
nations, and lo, I am with you." 
When Raphael was asked the secret of his 
marvelous work, he said, " I feel the spirit of 
my mother bending over me when I paint.'' 
When we ask why a Christian can do impos- 
sible things, it is because the Spirit of Christ 
is bending over him. A Christian in himself 
is only a man of common mold. He has no 
[ 128 ] 



more wisdom, strength or goodness than any 
other man. He has all the frailties, the in- 
firmities, the imperfections and faults of 
other men. But a Christian is a common man 
plus Jesus Christ. Christ has added himself 
to him — his strength, his goodness, his love, 
his divine life. A Christian is a man with 
God. 

In the later days of Grecian art, a prize was 
offered for the best statue of one of the god- 
desses. A youth in the country who loved 
this goddess set to work to compete for the 
prize. But he lacked the artist's gift and ex- 
perience, and his statue was crude and 
clumsy, far from beautiful. It seemed to 
have no chance at all for winning the prize. 
But the goddess, so the heathen legend runs, 
knowing of the sincere devotion of this 
youth to her and his love for her, when the 
time came for the display of the statues in 
the competition, entered herself into the 
crude stone, and at once it glowed with di- 
vine beauty, by far the most beautiful of all 
the statues, winning the prize. 
[ 129 ] 



We are called to show the world the beauty 
of Christ, to reproduce the glory of his life, 
not in cold marble, but in Christian charac- 
ter, in Christian spirit, in Christian service. 
In our weakness and f aultiness it may seem 
to us that we cannot do anything, that our 
life and work are unworthy of the holy name 
we bear. Our best seems most unlovely, 
crude, faulty, imperfect ; but if we truly love 
Christ, if we truly believe on him, and if at 
his command we strive to do that which 
seems impossible, Christ himself, knowing 
our love, and seeing our striving, will enter 
into our life and fill it with himself. Then 
our poor efforts will become radiant and di- 
vine in their beauty. Able to do nothing wor- 
thy in ourselves, when Christ adds his own 
blessed life to ours, we shall have power to 
do the things that are impossible. 



[130] 



€tom^ 



[131] 



**// all the skies were sunshine, 
Our faces would be fain 
To feel once more upon them 
The cooling plash of rain, 

^^If all the world were music, 
Our hearts would often long 
For one sweet strain of silence 
To break the endless song. 

^^If life were always merry, 
Our souls would seek relief 
And rest from weary laughter 
In the quiet arms of grief,'' 



[ 1S2 ] 



CHAPTER TEN 






ESUS said, " If any man 
would come after me, let 
him ... take up his cross 
daily and follow me." 
Many people misread these 
words. They suppose Je- 
sus refers to his own cross, telling us that if 
we would be his followers we must bear his 
cross. That is true in a sense. The Christian 
Church is an army of cross-bearers. But the 
meaning here is, that every Christian has a 
cross of his own which he must take up and 
carry loyally after his Master. 
There are crosses which we make for our- 
selves. A child could not understand what a 
cross in life is, and the father explained it in 
this way. A cross is composed of two pieces 
of wood, one longer, one shorter. The short- 
er piece represents our will, and the longer 
God's will. Lay the pieces side by side and no 
I 133 ] 



for ti^t OBejst Ci^tngjJ 

cross is formed. But lay the shorter across 
the longer, and there is a cross. Whenever 
our will falls athwart God's will, we have a 
cross. We make a cross for ourselves when we 
refuse to take God's way, to accept his will, 
or when we chafe or fret at anything God 
sends us. When, however, we quickly accept 
what God gives, and yield in sweet acquies- 
cence to the divine will, we have no crosses to 
carry. 

Yet there are many people who fill their 
lives with crosses by refusing to let God have 
his way with them. Much physical illness and 
pain are produced by violation of law, and 
the suffering endured in consequence is self- 
inflicted. Much of the trouble in people's 
lives they bring upon themselves by their 
indiscretions, follies and evil habits. Then 
there are those who make crosses for them- 
selves by magnifying their common ills, by 
dwelling on their troubles, by brooding over 
imaginary evils until their moderate share 
of mortal infelicities grows into a seeming 
mountain of calamities. If all the crosses we 
[134] 



make for ourselves were taken out of our 
lives, we should not have many left. Far more 
than we realize or could be made to believe, 
are we the authors of our own troubles. 
We make many crosses for each other. We 
do not know what it costs other people to 
live with us. There is a great deal of selfish- 
ness in the world, even in the best Christians, 
and selfishness makes life hard for others. 
There is much thoughtlessness in even the 
best human love, and thoughtlessness con- 
tinually makes suffering in gentle hearts. 
Marriage is the most sacred and holy of all 
human relationships, but there are few even 
among those most congenially and most hap- 
pily wedded, who do not make many crosses 
for each other. They do not mean to do it — 
they love each other and it is in their hearts 
always to give cheer, happiness and comfort. 
But unconsciously they say and do things 
continually which give pain and make 
crosses. 

Or it may be in what they do not do, in neg- 
lect of love's duties. With most good people 
[135] 



for tl^e 'Bejst Ci^ingjs 

it is in the lack of kindnesses rather than in 
words or deeds of unkindness that unloving- 
ness is chiefly wrought. 

" So many tender words and true 
I meant to say, dear love, to you: 
So many things I meant to do — 
But I forgot,'' 

There are parents who lay crosses on their 
children. There is no love more unselfish than 
a father's and a mother's, yet there are chil- 
dren in some homes that starve for love's 
daily bread. Some one says that children do 
not dream of the fire under the snow in the 
reticent nature of their parents. Yes, but the 
fire of parental love never should be buried 
under any snow of conventionality, of pride, 
of coldness, of reserve. The parent lays a 
heavy cross on the life of a child when he 
withholds love's warmth and aff^ectionate- 
ness. 

In all life's relations there is a great deal of 

cross-making for others. A man who pledges 

his troth to a woman at the marriage altar 

[136] 



promising " in all love and honor, in all faith 
and tenderness," to cherish her in the wedded 
bond, should be most watchful never to lay a 
rough cross on her gentle heart. A woman 
who makes a like covenant with a man, as his 
wife, should be most careful never to lay a 
cross on his faithful love, to make his burden 
harder. There are children, too, who make 
heavy crosses which their parents have to 
carry. In all relations of friendship this 
cross-making is going on all the time. We 
think we are ideal friends, but in thoughtless 
moments we cause bitter pain to those we love 
most truly. Some of us are exacting and un- 
reasonable in our demands upon our friends. 
We make the standard not ministering to, but 
to be ministered unto. We are envious or jeal- 
ous. We have our petty whims and caprices. 
We give way to temper and rash speech. A 
great many Christian people are quite ready 
to confess that their temper is their beset- 
ting sin, but frequently, there is little sincer- 
ity in such confession. Somehow, giving way 
to bad temper is such a common sin that few 
[137] 



for ti^e OBejit Ci^tngji 

are ashamed of it. No one can well reprove 
another for what he does himself continually. 
Yet it is only just that we should think of 
the crosses we make for others by our miser- 
able outbreaks of temper. 
In business relations too, and in social life, 
we are cross-makers. We are not easy to get 
along with. We are domineering and incon- 
siderate. We drive hard bargains. We disap- 
point people who trust us. We borrow and 
do not repay. We promise and do not keep 
our promises. We pledge friendship and do 
not prove loyal. We accept confidential com- 
munications and then violate honor by re- 
peating them. We receive favors and then 
return unkindness. We are helped over hard 
places and through difficulties, perhaps at 
great cost to our friends, and then forget. 
We need to remind ourselves how much 
harder some of us make life for others by 
crosses we lay on them, whether in what we 
say or do, or in what we fail to say or do. 
One of Mr. Lincoln's sayings was, " Die 
when I may, I want it said of me by those 
[138] 



€tom0 

who know me best, that I always plucked a 
thistle and planted a flower where I thought 
a flower would grow." One of the most pa- 
thetic words of Charles Lamb's is a wish he 
uttered, as he thought of the way he had so 
often laid a cross on his mother's heart — 
" What would I not give/' he said, " to call 
my mother back to earth for one day, to ask 
her pardon, on my knees, for all those acts by 
which I gave her gentle spirit pain ! " Every 
one has a cross of his own to carry, but ours 
should never be the hand that shapes the load 
that shall weigh down another life. 
Then there are crosses that God gives us to 
bear. Jesus spoke of his cross as a cup which 
the Father had put into his hand. Into every 
life come experiences clearly sent by God. 
The human and divine are so mingled in 
many of the events of our days that we can- 
not tell where the human ends and the divine 
begins. We need not try, however, to sepa- 
rate the threads, for God uses human events, 
even men's sins, in working out his purposes. 
Yet there are crosses which God lays upon 
[139] 



for tl^e "Be^t Cl^fngjs 

us. When death comes Into your home and 
one you love more than hf e lies still and silent 
among the flowers, you say God did it. There 
are many events in our lives for which we can 
find no human cause. There is immeasurable 
comfort, however, in the truth that this is 
God's world and that nothing ever gets out 
of our Father's hand. We need never be 
afraid of the crosses God lays upon us. 
The cross of Jesus was terrible in its torture, 
but we know what came of it. It was his way 
to his glory and the way of redemption for 
the world. What was true in such an infinite 
way of the cross of the Son of God, is true 
in lesser way, but no less truly of every cross 
that God lays on any of his children. The 
beautiful legend tells us that the crown of 
thorns, when found, lay through Passion 
Week in all its cruel aspect, but Easter morn- 
ing appeared changed, every thorn a glori- 
ous rose. The legend is true in a spiritual 
sense of any crown of thorns our Father per- 
mits us to wear. They will blossom into gar- 
lands of flowers on our head. That is the way 
[ 140] 



with all the painful things which God sends 
into our lives — in the end they will be trans- 
formed. We need never be afraid of God's 
crosses. 

Jesus bids us take up our cross, whatever it 
is, and follow him. No matter how the cross 
comes to be ours, if only it is a real cross, we 
are to lift it and bear it. We must not drag 
it, but take it up. That means that we are to 
accept it cheerfully. Jesus endured his cross 
and its shame with joy. He sang a hymn of 
praise as he left the upper room. The world 
never saw such a cross as his. It was like a 
dark mountain as it rested down upon him, 
but he faltered not as he took it up. We are 
to take up our crosses in the same glad, 
cheerful spirit. 

We are bidden to take up our cross daily. 
There are some of Christ's friends who have 
to carry their cross day after day through 
years. It is never lifted off. " Let him take up 
his cross daily." There will come no days 
when we can lay it down and get a little rest 
from its weight. A young woman who was 
[141] 



for ti^e QBejst Ci^mgjs 

lamed by the carelessness of another was told 
the other day that she cannot hope ever to be 
cured, that she must always be a sufferer, 
must always be a cripple. It Is not easy to 
accept such a burden and to be cheerful un- 
der It. But that Is the cross which In some 
form or other many have to take up dally. 
One comfort In such an experience Is that 
our cross has to be carried only one day at 
a time. It Is a fine secret to be able to live 
by the day. When we think of a lifelong 
cross that we have to carry till we die, the 
burden seems unendurable. But we can bear 
any pain or suffering for a day. 

" And so 
God lays a little on us every day, 
And never, I believe, on all the way. 
Will burdens bear so deep 
Or pathways lie so steep, 
But we can go, if by God^s power 
We only bear the burden of the hour.^^ 

Some one says, " I could bear my cross with 

joy If It was one that God gave to me. But 

[ 142 ] 



my cross is not from God. Human hands put 
It on me. Human hands make it a daily cross 
of injustice, unfairness, wrong, cruel suffer- 
ing." No doubt it is a hundred times harder 
to bear such a cross made for us by human 
hatred or brutality than it is to take up a 
cross of pain or sorrow or loneliness which 
comes from our heavenly Father. There is a 
sacredness about something that God gives 
us which makes it easier for us to accept it. 
We know there is love in it. But, however our 
cross may come to us, whether directly from 
God, through some providence, or indirectly, 
through some human unkindness, the Mas- 
ter's bidding is that we take it up daily and 
continue following him. It is our cross wheth- 
er God or man lays it on our shoulder. 
The cross which Jesus bore was made by hu- 
man hands. Men persecuted him, men wove 
the crown of thorns for his head, men nailed 
his hands to the wood. Did he resist his cross 
because human cruelty made it for him.^ No ; 
he accepted it without a murmur, without a 
word of resentment. He kept love in his heart 
[ 143 ] 



through all the terrible hours. That is the 
way he would have us take up our cross, what- 
ever it may be — ^never bitterly or resentfully, 
never sullenly or despairingly. 
Jesus did not talk about his cross, and he 
would have us bear ours silently. Some peo- 
ple seem to want to carry their cross so that 
every one will see it. But that is not the way 
the Master would have us do. His voice was 
not heard in the street. He made no com- 
plaint, no outcry. He never called attention 
to his suffering. He is pleased with silent 
cross-bearing in his friends. He wants them 
to rejoice, even in pain. We should not take 
up our cross vaingloriously. 
There is blessing in our cross, first, for our- 
selves, and then for others. Christ's cross 
lifted him to glory. Our crosses will also lift 
us to higher things. If we suffer with Christ 
we shall also reign with him. Then our 
crosses are meant also to be blessings to 
others. A writer has a strange fancy of a 
woman who carried a sword in her heart. She 
kept it concealed under her garments and 
[ 144 ] 



went bravely on with her work. One day she 
met a blind woman who was groping along, 
with no staff to support her, and she gave the 
woman her sword. " Oh, this is a good staff,'' 
said the blind woman : " now I shall get on 
well." The woman looked, and lo ! her sword 
had become a staff indeed in the blind wom- 
an's hand. The cross of Jesus was to him a 
cruel and terrible instrument of torture, a 
sword piercing through his heart. Now to 
men and women everywhere it is a staff to 
lean on, a guiding hand to lead them, a shel- 
ter from the storm, a refuge from the heat. 
We may so bear our crosses that they shall 
become blessings to all about us. A good 
woman was telling how a great grief which 
it seemed she could not possibly endure had 
enabled her to be a comforter of those in sor- 
row, through her sympathy with them, and 
that in giving love and help, her own burden 
had been lightened, her sorrow turned to 

joy. 

Thus it is, that the crosses we take up obe- 
diently and cheerfully, and bear in faith and 
[145] 



love, become wings to lift us and then bene- 
dictions to those to whom we minister. The 
cross of Christ is saving the world. Just so 
far as we take up our cross in the spirit of 
our Master will we become blessings to the 
world. Selfishness never made any spot holier 
or any life better. Accept your cross, take it 
up and bear it victoriously and there will be 
a new song in your own heart and you will 
start songs in the hearts of many others. 



[ 146] 



po)a)tv of €W^V^ fxim^^l^iv 



[147] 



A friend's bosom 
Is as the inmost cave of our own mind, 
Where we sit shut from the wide gaze of day. 
And from the all-communicating air, 

— Shelley. 



O friend, my bosom said, 

Through thee alone the sky is arched, 

Through thee the rose is red, 

All things through thee take nobler form 

And look beyond the earth; 

The mill-round of our fate appears 

A sun-path in thy worth. 

Me too thy nobleness has taught 

To master my despair: 

The fountains of my hidden life 

Are through thy friendship fair, 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson. 



[148] 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 




ERHAPS we are paying 
too dearly for some of 
the boasted gains of our 
modern life. They tell us 
that in an ordinary life- 
time a man really lives 
longer now than Methusaleh did in his nearly 
ten centuries of antediluvian time. But in our 
swift, intense life we are losing some things 
that people used to enjoy in their more lei- 
surely days. Friendship is one of these. There 
is no time for it now, for friendship takes 
time. We touch each other only lightly and 
superficially in our crowded days. We have 
many acquaintances, and we may give and 
receive help and inspiration even in our hur- 
ried contacts. But in quieter, slower days, 
the people had time to live together, and 
enter into intimate relations in which they 
impressed each other's life and did much in 
[ 149] 



shaping and coloring each other's character. 
The art of friendship is one we cannot afford 
to lose. Friendship means a great deal to us, 
not only as a source of pleasure and happi- 
ness, but in practical ways. We never can 
know what we owe to our friends, what they 
have done for us, how they have helped us, 
what they have done in the building of our 
character. Our lives are like buildings going 
up, and every one who comes to us, whether 
for a prolonged stay or only for a few mo- 
ments, puts something into the walls or into 
the adornment. Our friends, if they are wor- 
thy, exert a measureless influence over us. 
One writes: 

^^^ He is my friend ^ I said — 
' Be patient. ' Overhead 
The skies were drear and dim, 
And lo! the thought of him 
Smiled on my heart — and then 
The sun shone out again, 

" ^ He is my friend! ' The words 
Brought summer and the birds; 
[150] 



l^otDet: of C]^rijst'j3 fximh^W 

And all my winter-time 
Thawed into running rhyme 
And rippled into song. 
Warm, tender, brave, and strong,'' 

The thought that one who is noble, true, and 
worthy is our friend gives us a sense of 
companionship, even in lonehness. Such a 
consciousness is Hke a holy presence in which 
we cannot do anything unworthy. Such a 
friendship transforms us, enriches our char- 
acter, sweetens our spirit, and inspires in us 
all upward aspirations and reachings. 
The thought of these influences and minis- 
trations of human friendship helps us to un- 
derstand a little better what the friendship 
of Christ may be to us, and what it may do 
for us and in us. For one of the ways in 
which Christ off'ers himself to us is as our 
Friend. Perhaps we do not think enough of 
this phase of his life. We speak of him as our 
Saviour, our Master, our Helper, but do we 
think of him often enough as our Friend .^^ 
Friendship implies intimacy. We love to be 
with a friend. We love to talk with him about 
[151] 



all the sacred things of our life. Do we have 
any such intimacy with Christ? 
The other day one complained that he could 
scarcely get time any more to pray, he had 
so much to do. Life is indeed strenuous for 
many of us, full of duties which seem to 
forbid leisure. If our modern life is robbing 
us of the privileges of human friendship, is 
there not danger that it shall make close, in- 
timate friendship with our Master also al- 
most impossible ? We read of some one spend- 
ing a whole hour every morning with Christ, 
and we say, " That is impossible in my 
crowded life." But even if we can get no long 
hours alone with our Master, we can culti- 
vate a friendship with him that will go on 
unbroken through the longest, busiest hours. 
Those who were close to the great Jesuit mis- 
sionary, Francis Xavier, said that in the 
time of his most intense occupation he would 
often be heard saying in whispers, " Jesus ! 
Jesus ! Jesus ! " He lived all the time with 
his Master. 

That is not an impossible attainment for any 
[152] 



ptrntt of €W^t'^ ^ximti^^iv 

sincere and earnest Christian. We cannot 
always be on our knees in the formal attitude 
of prayer. We have our duties and we may 
not neglect them even for acts of devotion. 
This would not please our Master. We can 
conceive of occasions when prayer would not 
be the duty, when we ought even to leave our 
altar and attend to some service of love that 
needs us. But we may always pray while we 
work. Our hearts may be in communion with 
God even when our hands are busiest in ac- 
tivities. We may talk with Christ while we are 
serving him. In whatsoever we do we may 
have Christ with us and we may do all we do 
in his name. We do not have to leave our 
tasks in order to be with Christ. We may cul- 
tivate friendship with him in our busiest 
days. 

If we would find the best that is in Christ, 
we must know him as a personal Friend. We 
are in danger of thinking that nothing 
counts in the Christian life but the activities ; 
we must always be doing something, talking 
to somebody? holding meetings, making gar- 
[153] 



fox ti^t 15m Cl^tngjj 

merits for the poor, relieving distress. But 
there is a better way. The disciples thought 
Mary had wasted her ointment when she had 
broken the vase and poured the precious 
nard on her Master's head and feet. It had 
not done anybody any good. It had fed no 
hungry one, paid no one's rent, put bread in 
no hungry mouth, clothed no shivering child. 
They thought that using it only to honor 
a friend was a waste. But the truth is, that 
never before nor since, in the history of the 
world, was so much value put to more blessed 
use. Think how Mary's loving deed com- 
forted the Master, warmed his heart and 
strengthened him for going to the cross. 
Then think how the telling of the story of 
her love has filled the world with sweet inspi- 
rations and gentle influences through all 
these centuries. Countless thousands have re- 
ceived impulses to lovely things through the 
story of Mary's deed of affection. Thus the 
fragrant act of this quiet woman has started 
inspirations of love wherever the story has 
been told throughout the world. 
[ 154 ] 



Of course it is worth while to build churches, 
found hospitals, and help the poor, but it is 
worth while also to cultivate friendship with 
Christ. The Chinese have a saying, " If you 
have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy a 
lily." Some people toil only for loaves, never 
thinking of lilies. But bread is not all that 
people need. There are days when you are 
not hungry for food, but are longing for 
sympathy, for a word of kindness, for en- 
couragement, for appreciation, for friend- 
ship. There are hours when you have every- 
thing you could crave of earthly comfort and 
blessing and of human affection and interest, 
but need the touch of the hand of Christ, 
some revealing of divine interest and affec- 
tion. Sell a loaf and buy a lily, for the lily 
will mean more to you than the bread. Of all 
the blessings within your reach nothing will 
mean so much to you as the friendship of 
Christ. If you have it you will not miss any- 
thing else that you do not have. This friend- 
ship, close, constant, confidential, satisfying, 
will leave nothing else to be desired. 
[155] 



for tl^e 'Zm Ci^tngss 

Think, too, what the friendship of Christ 
will do for us in the way of spiritual culture. 
It was the friendship of Jesus that was the 
chief influence in the making of St. John. He 
was not always the apostle of love that we 
know in the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles. 
These were written when John was an old 
man. At first he was hasty in temper and 
speech, resentful, ambitious for place, not 
sweet and loving. But he accepted the friend- 
ship of Christ, allowing its holy blessedness 
to pour into his heart like sunshine. And it 
transformed him. 

It is related that a friend once said to Lord 
Tennyson, " Tell me what Jesus Christ is to 
you, personally." They were walking in the 
garden, and close by was a rosebush full of 
wonderful roses. Pointing to this miracle of 
nature, Lord Tennyson answered, " What 
the sun is to this rosebush, Jesus Christ is to 
me." The sun had wooed out from the bare, 
briery bush of the spring days all that mar- 
velous beauty of roses. And whatever was 
lovely, winsome, and divine in the life of the 
[156] 



^otwet: of €\^vi$t'^ fvimh^l^ip 

great poet, he meant to say had been wooed 
out of his natural self by the warmth of 
Christ's love. So the John we know in later 
years was the St. John that the friendship 
of Christ had made. St. Paul tells us that the 
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long- 
suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 
meekness, self-control. These are the roses 
that grow on the thorny stem of human na- 
ture when the warmth of the love of Christ 
has been falling upQn it. 

Then the friendship of Christ makes our 
Christian work a thousand times more beau- 
tiful. Love has a strange power in calling out 
the best that is in us. They discovered the 
reason for the young soldier's splendid cour- 
age in the battle, after he had fallen, in the 
picture of a fair face that he carried in his 
blouse pocket, over his heart. Love inspired 
his bravery. If the secrets of life were all 
known, it would be seen that the world's best 
work in every field is done through love's 
inspiration. 

And the mightiest of all inspirations is the 
[157] 



for tl^e OBejSt Ci^ingjs 

~~t '. " 

love of Christ. ^There is a legend of a monk 
in a monastery cell, who painted picture, 
after picture of martyrs, saints, and oftener 
than aught else, of the thorn-crowned face of 
Christ. His fellow-monks thought him men- 
tally wanting, and said his pictures were 
mere daubs. But he endured their jeers, and 
worked on. He had dreamed over the Christ 
of Calvary until his soul was aflame with lov- 
ing devotion, and he longed to make a pic- 
ture which would honor his Lord. One night, 
when the scorn of his companions had been 
almost more than he could bear, he sought 
his cell with a breaking heart. " My life is 
wasted," he cried. " I never can worthily 
paint my Beloved Master. To-morrow, the fire 
shall consume all these wretched failures." 
He raised his streaming eyes, and lo, there 
was Another in his cell — One thorn-crowned, 
his face shining in ineffable beauty, the very 
face he had seen so often in his dreams, and 
longed to paint ! Then a voice spoke, " All 
work is worthy that is done for love of me." 
As he looked^ in wondering awe, his pictures 
[ 158 ] 



f^otoet of €W&t'^ :frienDss]^ip 

on the wall took on a transcendent loveliness. 
The dreams of the poor monk's heart had 
found their realization. ... 

Thus it is that the love of Christ transfig- 
ures the poorest, plainest things we do. We 
may be discouraged over the things we have 
been trying to do for Christ. A young Sun- 
day-school teacher spoke with dishearten- 
ment of what seemed to her a failure in her 
efforts to do her pupils good. We all feel so 
of ourselves and our work. We cannot think 
that God will use anything so poor, so inade- 
quate, so unworthy, as even our best. But let 
us remember that if the friendship of Christ 
is in our hearts, it is not we alone, but Christ 
and we, who do the work. Inspired by this 
friendship, even the smallest things we do if 
they are the best we can do, will be beautiful 
in heaven's sight and will be accepted. 



[159] 



W\^V l^ot OBe CtouWeD ? 



[161] 



^' Still on the lips of all we question, 

The finger of God^s silence lies; 
Will the lost hands in ours be folded^ 

Will the shut eyelids ever risef 
O friend, no proof beyond this yearning, 

This outreach of our hearts, we need; 
God will not mock the hope he giveth, 

No love he prompts shall vainly plead. 
Then let us stretch our hands in darkness, 

And call our loved ones o'er and o'er; 
Some day their arms will close about us. 

And the old voices speak once moreJ^ 



'^ Thank God for friends your life has known. 

For every dear, departed day; 
The blessed past is safe alone — 

God gives y but does not take away; 
He only safely keeps above 
For us the treasures that we love,'* 



[162] 



CHAPTER TWELVE 




EXT to the little Twenty- 
third Psalm, the four- 
teenth chapter of St. 
John's Gospel is, no doubt, 
the best known and best 
loved portion of the Bible. 
It is a chapter of comfort. The sick love it, 
for there is a music in it which soothes pain 
and suffering. The dying love it, for it has 
its revealings of the life into which they are 
passing. The bereft love it, for it opens win- 
dows into heaven, and gives them glimpses 
of the blessed life of those who have gone to 
be at home in the Father's house. 
Christ's friends were in great sorrow, sorrow 
which seemed inconsolable. Yet their Mas- 
ter's first word to them was, " Let not your 
heart be troubled." This seemed a strange 
word to say to them that night. How could 
they help being troubled in such experiences 
[163] 



as theirs ? Think of all Jesus had grown to be 
to them. For three years they had been mem- 
bers of his personal family, enjoying the 
most intimate relations with him. How much 
a friend can be to us in our life depends on 
the friend. If he has a rich nature, a noble/ 
personality, power to love deeply, capacity 
for friendship, the spirit of unselfish helpful- 
ness ; if he is able to inspire us to heroism and 
to worthy living ; what he can be to us is sim- 
ply immeasurable. Think of what the best, 
strongest, richest-hearted human friend is to 
you in the way of cheer, inspiration, guid- 
ance, courage, atmosphere. Think what Jesus 
with his marvelous personality must have been 
as a friend to his disciples. Then you can un- 
derstand something of what his going from 
them meant to them. 

Then he was more than a friend to them. 
They had believed in him as their Messiah, 
who was to redeem their nation and to lead 
them to honor and power. Great hopes rested 
in him. His death, as it seemed to them, would 
be the failure of all these hopes. The an- 
[ 164] 



nouncement swept away, as they now 
thought, all that made life worth while to 
them. There are human friends whose death 
seems to leave only desolation in the hearts 
and lives of those who have loved them and 
leaned on them. But the death of Christ was 
to his personal friends and followers the 
blotting out of every star of hope and prom- 
ise. Their sorrow was overwhelming. Yet 
Jesus looked into their faces and said, " Let 
not your heart be troubled." Jesus is always 
an encourager, a minister of cheer. Some 
people come to us in trial, thinking to com- 
fort us, but their words fail to give any 
strength. They weep with us, they sympa- 
thize with us, but they do not make us any 
braver, any more able to endure. If we would 
be comforters like our Master, we must in- 
spire others to endurance. We must bring 
them something that will make them strong- 
er. Mere condolence will not do it. We must 
have something to give which will impart 
strength and courage. 

What is there in the gospel of Christ that 
[165] 



fot ti^e ism Ci^tng^ 

gives us authority to say, " Let not your 
heart be troubled " ? The first thing Jesus 
bade his disciples do was to believe — " Be- 
lieve in God, believe also in me." Thus far 
they had believed. Jesus had taught them a 
new name for God. They were to call him 
Father. He used almost no other name for 
God. The word " father " is a great treasure 
house of love-thoughts. It told the disciples 
of the minute thought and care of God, ex- 
tending to the smallest events of their lives. 
It told them of goodness that never failed. 
It was a great lesson they had been learning 
— to think of God as their Father. In the 
shock of the last terrible days, however, 
there was danger that they would lose their 
faith. Yet Jesus said that dark hour : " Be- 
lieve in God. Let nothing take away from 
you your faith in God as your Father." 
Then he said further, " Believe also in me." 
They had accepted Jesus as their Messiah. 
They believed that he had come to be the 
world's Redeemer. Now at the announcement 
that he was to die at the hands of his enemies, 
[166] 



there was danger that they should lose their 
faith in him. If he died in defeat, what would 
become of his claim and their hope that he 
would redeem his people ? To save them from 
their loss of faith, he exhorted them to con- 
tinue to believe. " Believe in God, believe also 
in me." 

We are always in danger of losing our faith 
in times of trouble. Many people are heard 
asking such questions as " How can God be 
a God of love, and suffer me to be so bereft, 
so stripped of good.'^ Where now are the 
promises of blessing which are made so con- 
stantly in the Scriptures.? Has God forgot- 
ten to be gracious ? '' To such questions the 
answer is, " Believe in God, believe also in 
me." Let nothing disturb your faith. Though 
it seems that love has failed, that God has 
forgotten you, that Christ is no longer your 
friend, still believe; believe in God, believe 
also in Jesus Christ. 

Sorrow is full of mystery. Every way we 

turn we hear people ask. Why ? " This is not 

love," we say. " This is not goodness. This 

[167] 



is not divine care." We cannot understand. 
But how could we, with our narrow vision 
and our partial knowledge, understand the 
infinite purposes of God ? 
Then God does not want to give us an easy 
life — he wants to make something of us, and 
of ttimes the only way to do this is to give us 
pain, loss, or suffering. A writer tells of 
keeping for nearly a year the flask-shaped 
cocoon of an emperor moth. A narrow open- 
ing is left in the neck of the flask, through 
which the perfect insect slowly forces its 
way. The opening is so small that it seems 
impossible for the moth to pass through it. 
This writer watched the efforts of the impris- 
oned moth to escape. It did not appear to 
make any progress. At last he grew impa- 
tient. He pitied the little creature and re- 
solved to assist it. Taking his scissors, he 
snipped the confining threads to make the 
struggle easier. In a moment the moth was 
free, dragging out a great swollen body and 
little shriveled wings. He watched to see the 
beauty unfold, but he watched in vain. It 
[168] 



never was anything but a stunted abortion, 
crawling painfully about, instead of flying 
through the air on rainbow wings. Nature's 
way, God's way with moths, is the only true 
way, although it is a way of pain, struggle, 
suffering. Human pity may make it easier, 
but the end will be destruction. 
Divine love never makes this mistake, either 
in nature or in dealing with human lives. 
God lets us suffer, for by suffering we will 
best grow into perfect beauty. When the 
mystery of pain or hardness comes into our 
life, let us not doubt. The disciples thought 
all their hopes had perished, but in the end 
they learned that every hope was fulfilled. 
Good came out of what seemed irretrievable 
disaster. " Believe in God, believe also in me," 
is always the word of faith and comfort. We 
cannot understand, but our Master under- 
stands, and that is enough. 
Jesus told his disciples that he was going to 
his Father's house. The words give us a beau- 
tiful revealing of heaven. Heaven is home. On 
this earth there is no place so sweet, so sa- 
[169] 



cred, so heart satisfying, as a true home. It is 
a place of love — truest, gentlest, most unself- 
ish love. It is a place of confidence. We are 
always sure of home's loved ones. We do not 
have to be on our guard when we enter our 
home doors. We do not have to wear veils 
there, hiding or disguising our real selves. 
Home is a refuge to which we flee from the 
danger, the enmity, the unkindness, the in- 
justice of the world. Home is the place where 
hungry hearts feed on love's bread. Mrs. 
Craik, in one of her books, has this fine 
picture : 

" Oh, conceive the happiness to know some 
one person dearer to you than your own self, 
some one breast into which you can pour 
every thought, every grief, every joy; one 
person, who, if all the rest of the world were 
to calumniate or forsake you, would never 
wrong you by a harsh thought or an unjust 
word; who would cling to you the closer in 
sickness, in poverty, in care ; who would sac- 
rifice all things to you, and for whom you 
[ 170 ] 



would sacrifice all; from whom, except by 
death, night or day, you never can be di- 
vided; whose smile is ever at your hearth; 
who has no tears while you are well and 
happy and your love the same.'' 

'This is a glimpse of what a true home is. The 
picture is sometimes realized on the earth — 
there are homes here which are well-nigh per- 
fect. But it will be fully realized in heaven. 
No other description of heaven, given in the 
Bible, means so much to our hearts as that 
which our Master gives in these three words, 
" My Father's house " — Home. 
Jesus told his disciples further that he was 
going to prepare a place for them. He was 
going for their sakes. They thought they 
could not spare him, but he said he was going 
to continue his work on their behalf. Then he 
added, " If I go and prepare a place for you, 
I will come again, and will receive you unto 
myself." There was no accident therefore in 
the dying of Jesus. His going away was part 
of God's plan and purpose for his life. 
[171] 



The comfort for us in all our sorrows is that 
nothing has gone wrong, that God's purpose 
is going on even in what seems the wrecking 
of our human hopes. Your friend passed 
away the other night. You thought he would 
have been with you for many years to come. 
You had plans covering a long future of 
happiness. You were appalled when the doc- 
tor said that he could not live till morning. 
Life to you would be most dreary, lonely, 
empty, without this one who had become so 
dear to you. Is there any comfort for you in 
this experience.^ Christ says, " Let not your 
heart be troubled." There is no reason why 
you should be troubled. If you could see all 
things as God sees them, you would not be 
dismayed. If the disciples had known just 
what the death of their Master would mean 
— to him, to them, to the divine glory, to the 
world, they would not have been troubled. 
Death to your friend was the completion of 
the earthly portion of his life; the passing 
of the spirit to the heavenly home, to enter 
anew into the service of the Master. Is there 
[ 172 ] 



no comfort in this? Is there no comfort in 
the truth of immortality, that he who liveth 
and beheveth on Christ shall never die? Is 
there no comfort in knowing that your 
friend who has passed from the earthly home 
is in the Father's house? 
We need not be anxious about the loved one 
we have sent out of our home into the 
Father's house. The baby is safer there than 
ever it could have been in the human mother's 
arms. 

" Another lamb, Lamb of God, behold 
Within this quiet fold, 
Among thy Father's sheep 
I lay to sleep! 

A heart that never for a night did rest 
Beyond its mother's breast. 
Lord, keep it close to thee, 
Lest waking it should cry and pine for me! '' 

You say, " Yes, but my friend stayed so 
brief a time ! I could almost wish that I had 
not let my heart fasten its tendrils about 
him, since so soon he was torn away from 
me." Say it not. It is worth while to love, and 
[173] 



to let the heart pour out all its sweetness m 
loving, though it be but for a day, and then 
to have the bliss give way to grief. Richard 
Watson Gilder in a little poem touches this 
element of human grief. 

Because the rose must fade 
Shall I not love the rose? 

Because the summer shade 
Passes when winter blows, 

Shall I not rest me there 

In the cool air? 

Because the sunset sky 
Makes music in my soul. 

Only to jail and die, 

Shall I not take the whole 

Of beauty that it gives 

While yet it lives? 

It is sweet to have your friend, if only for 
one day. You will really have him always 
after that. For two persons to love each 
other at all, actually, deeply, worthily, is to 
have their lives knit together into one, indis- 
soluble, two souls blent in one, inseparable. 
[174] 



Death will not tear them apart. It is blessed 
to love, though we stay together but the 
briefest while. A baby comes and looks into 
the young mother's eyes, and in an hour is 
gone. Was that brief stay in vain ? No ; the 
mother always has a baby after that. The 
love for that sweet life will never die in her 
heart. She will always have on her soul the 
impression made by that short stay. Then in 
the eternal years she will have the beautiful 
life as her own, in love, fellowship, and joy. 



[175] 



Cl^e l^roblem of Cemptatton 



[177] 



''// life is always a warfare 

Between the right and the wrong, 

And good is fighting with evil 
For ages and ceons long, — 

^^ Fighting with eager cohorts, 

With banners pierced and torn, 
Shining with sudden splendor, 
Wet with the dew of morn,— 

^'If all the forces of heaven 
And all the forces of sin 
Are met in the infinite struggle, 
The souls of the world to win, — 

''// God^s is the awful battle 

Where the darkling legions ride- 
Hasten to sword and to saddle! 
Lord, let me fight on thy sideJ' 



[178] 



CHAPTER THIRTEEN 



Ci^e problem of Cemptatton 




HE petition in our Lord's 
Prayer regarding tempta- 
tion perplexes some good 
people. It reads in the 
Revised Version, " Bring 
us not into temptation." 
Does Grod then ever bring us into tempta- 
tion? Does he want us to be tempted? We 
think of temptation as incitement or persua- 
sion to sin. We know that God never tempts 
us in this way. " Let no man say when he is 
tempted, I am tempted of God." But the 
word temptation means also trial, testing. 
So we have this in St. James, " Blessed is the 
man that endureth temptation; for when he 
hath been approved, he shall receive the 
crown of life." In the same epistle we have 
also this: "Count it all joy, my brethren, 
when ye fall into manifold temptations ; 
knowing that the proving of your faith 
[ 179 ] 



fov ti^e ism Ci^ing^ 

worketh patience." The reference here is to 
trials, disciplines, sufferings, rather than to 
incitements to sin. We are to be glad when 
we have such experiences, because in them we 
shall grow strong. It is a real misfortune 
never to have anything to put our character 
to the test or to bring out its undeveloped 
qualities. 

Thus we are helped to understand the mean- 
ing of temptation from the divine side. 
When Jesus was led, driven, by the Holy 
Spirit into the waste places to be tempted of 
the devil, God's thought was not to cause 
him to sin ; rather, it was to give him the op- 
portunity to be tested and proved, that he 
might come again with the light of victory 
on his face, ready to be the Friend, Helper, 
and Deliverer of countless other men. So 
when God brings us into a place in which we 
must meet temptation, it is never his purpose 
to lead us to sin. That is Satan's purpose, 
but God's is that we may meet the tempta- 
tion and be victorious in it. Temptations, 
therefore, are opportunities that God puts 
[180] 



Ci^e problem of Cemptatton 

within our reach by which we are to become 
strong and rich in experience. 
We are not, therefore, to pray that we shall 
never have any temptations. Imagine a sol- 
dier praying that he may never have to fight 
any battles. What is the business of a soldier 
but to fight? Only on battlefields can he 
learn courage or train himself to be a soldier. 
What battles are to a soldier, temptations 
are to a Christian. He never can become of 
much worth as a man if he never faces strug- 
gles and learns to overcome. Browning puts 
it thus: 

When the fight begins, within himself 
A man's worth something, God stoops o'er his 

head, 
Satan looks up between his feet — both tug — 
. . . . The soul waits and grows. 

Soldiers are made on battlefields, character 
is grown, men are made, in trial. Browning 
says again: 

Why comes temptation but for man to meet 
And master and make crouch beneath his feet, 
[181] 



And so be pedestalled in triumph ? Pray 
^^ Lead us into no such temptations, Lord.'' 
Yea, but, thou whose servants are the bold, 
Lead such temptations by the hand and hair, 
Reluctant dragons, up to who dares fight, 
That so he may do battle and have praise. 

God does then bring us into temptation. At 
least, he suffers us to meet temptation, not 
that we may fall, but that we may have the 
struggle and come out of it stronger, ready 
for nobler and worthier life and service. The 
Master's cheering word to every follower of 
his as he enters any struggle is, " He that 
overcometh, I will give to him to sit down 
with me in my throne." The day of tempta- 
tion is doomsday to every straggler. They 
show you a place on the great mountain divide 
in the west, where the destiny of a dewdrop, 
trembling on a leaf, is decided by the direc- 
tion of the breeze that is blowing. If the 
wind is from the west, the dewdrop will fall 
to the eastward of an invisible line and will be 
carried into the Mississippi, and to the At- 
lantic Ocean. But if there is even the gentlest 
[ 182 ] 



Cl^e problem of temptation 

breeze from the east, the drop of dew will 
fall to the west of the divide, and will start 
on its way to the Pacific. So in experiences 
of temptation, human lives tremble on the 
divide of the eternities. We know not the mo- 
mentousness of our decisions even in what 
seem most trivial matters. 
We understand now the meaning of tempta- 
tion and the importance of its issue. It is the 
part of true life to make it a blessing. Some 
tell us that the petition in the Lord's Prayer 
is cowardly — " Bring us not into tempta- 
tion." If nobler character lies beyond the 
struggle, why should we shrink from the 
struggle.? Why not seek it and welcome it.? 
Yet we dare not rush recklessly into peril. 
Our Master never bids us put ourselves need- 
lessly in the way of danger. We are to ask 
for guidance and then go where he wants us 
to go, not thinking of the peril. Christ did 
not pray that his disciples should be taken out 
of the world, that is, away from its enmity 
and danger ; his prayer rather was that they 
should never fail in any duty and should then 
[183] 



be protected from the world's evil, that is, 
from sin ; that in their battles and struggles 
they should be kept unspotted. 
The prayer, " Bring us not into temptation," 
is never to be a request to be spared perilous 
duty, or that temptation, coming in the path 
of duty, shall be avoided. We should never be 
afraid of anything in the divine will. George 
Macdonald describes thus what he calls a 
sane, wholesome, practical working faith: 
" First, that it is a man's business to do the 
will of God ; second, that God takes on him- 
self the special care of that man ; and third, 
that therefore that man ought never to be 
afraid of anything." If you go into any way 
of temptation or danger unsent, unled of 
God, you go without God's protection and 
have no promise of shelter or deliverance. 
But if, after your morning prayer, " Bring 
us not into temptation to-day," you find 
yourself facing the fiercest struggle, you 
need have no fear. Christ is with you, and 
no harm can touch you. 

The problem of Christian living then is not 
[184] 



Cl^e problem of temptation 

to escape struggle, to avoid meeting danger, 
but in any peril in the line of duty to be pre- 
served from harm. Temptation is not sin. 
Sin begins when temptation is listened to, 
parleyed with, yielded to. There is no sin in 
the feeling of resentment or anger which 
rises in us when we are insulted, when injury 
is done to us. We cannot prevent the momen- 
tary feeling of wrong ; that is not sin if we 
gain a victory over it, if we turn the rising 
bitter feeling into a prayer, and the impulse 
to resentment into a deed of kindness. But 
when the bitterness is allowed to nest in our 
heart we have sinned. 

Safety in temptation requires that we sol- 
emnly and resolutely reject every impulse to 
do anything that is wrong. We must watch 
the merest beginnings of departure from 
right. We have our weak points and must 
keep a double guard at these places. We 
must watch our companionships. We would 
better sacrifice a friendship that has brought 
us much pleasure, rather than by retaining 
it suffer contamination or defihng. The in- 
[185] 



for tl^e 15m C]^ing?{ 

fluence of the world is most subtle. It is easy 
to drift unconsciously into its atmosphere, 
and to have our lives hurt by its spirit. 
In one of Maarten Maarten's novels, one of 
the characters is a pure-hearted girl who 
might be judged to have no consciousness of 
sin. She, however, leaves her quiet home, and 
with friends visits Paris and Monte Carlo. 
At the close of one day she receives a black- 
edged letter, telling her of the death of her 
old pastor. He had sent his love to her just 
before he died. The event recalls the good 
man's birthday message to her some time 
before, which she had overlooked. The mes- 
sage was, " Keep yourself unspotted from 
the world." The words now started from the 
page with painful vividness. 
Then the book goes on to tell how the girl 
sat stroking the back of one hand with the 
other, mechanically, as if to wipe off the dim 
stains of the day. She felt soiled as well as 
saddened. She opened the window and looked 
up at the stars. Then her head sank on the 
window ledge and the tears fell freely on the 
[ 186 ] 



Cl^e problem of CemiJtation 

blots that no tears could wipe away. She had 
not gone into the world's evil ways. She had 
not given up her Christ — only she had gone 
into the atmosphere of worldliness and her 
garments were no longer unspotted. The in- 
cident tells us how easy it is to be hurt by 
the world. 

How may we get divine help in our struggles 
with temptation ? Only the other day one was 
almost bitterly complaining of God because 
he had allowed a friend to fall into grievous 
sin after earnest prayer that the friend 
might be kept. " Why did God let my friend 
fall.^ " was the question that was asked, as if 
God had failed to do his part, as if it were 
God's fault that the friend had fallen. We 
must remember that God does not keep any 
one from sin by force. He does not build a 
wall round us, that the evil cannot get near 
us. He keeps us through our own will, our 
own choice. But he will always help us when 
we strive to be true. 

There is a luminous word about temptation 

in one of St. Paul's epistles : " There hath no 

[187] 



fox tl^e "Be^t Ci^tng^ 

temptation taken you but such as man can 
bear : but God is faithful, who will not suffer 
you to be tempted above that ye are able; 
but will with the temptation make also the 
way of escape, that ye may be able to endure 
it." We never can plead that our temptation 
is too great for human strength. It is never 
necessary for us to fall. We may overcome in 
the most bitter struggle. God keeps watch, 
and will never permit the temptation to be- 
come greater than we are able to bear. He 
does not pamper us and keep us from strug- 
gle. He wants us to be good soldiers. He 
wants us to learn to stand and to be brave, 
true, and strong. But when he sees that the 
temptation is growing so hard that we can- 
not longer resist it, he comes with help. He 
makes a way of escape — opens some door by 
which we may have relief or deliverance. 
Peter was not kept from temptation the 
night of the Lord's betrayal — it was neces- 
sary that he should be tried and that his own 
strength might fail. In no other way could 
Peter be prepared for his work. But Jesus 
[ 188 ] 



Ci^e l^t^oblem of Cemptation 

kept his eye on his disciple in his terrible ex- 
perience and made intercession for him, that 
his faith might not utterly fail. 
It is well that we learn the need of divine 
help in the temptations of our lives. It is not 
enough to have the forms of religion — in the 
great crises of our experience, only Christ 
himself will sufBce. It is said that Gainsbor- 
ough, the artist, longed also to be a musician. 
He bought musical instruments of many 
kinds and tried to play them. He once heard 
a great violinist bringing ravishing music 
from his mstrument. Gainsborough was 
charmed and thrown into transports of ad- 
miration. He bought the violin on which 
the master had played so marvelously. He 
thought that if he only had the wonderful 
instrument he could play, too. But he soon 
learned that the music was not in the violin, 
but was in the master who played it. 
We sometimes read how certain persons have 
learned to overcome in temptation and we 
try to get their method, thinking we can 
overcome, too, if we use the same formula 
[189] 



that they use. We read the biographies of 
eminent saints to find out how they prayed, 
how they read the Bible, thinking that we 
can get the secret of their victoriousness 
simply by adopting their order of spiritual 
life. But as the music was not in the violin, 
but in the player, so the secret of victory in 
temptation is not in any method, not even in 
the Bible, nor in any liturgy of prayer, but 
only in Christ. The power that makes us 
strong is not in any religious schedule, it is 
not in any other one's methods — we must 
have Christ with us, Christ in us. 
There is a beautiful legend of Columba, the 
apostle of Christianity in North Britain. 
The saint wished to make a copy of the 
Psalms for his own use, but the one book was 
kept out of his reach, hidden in the church. 
Columba made his way secretly into the 
church, at night, and found the place where 
the volume was kept. But there was no light 
in the building and he could not see to write. 
But when he opened the book and took his 
pen to write, light streamed out from his 
[190] 



Cl^e laroblem of Cemptatton 

hand and flooded the page with radiance. 
With that shining hand he made a copy of 
the Psalter. It is only a legend, but it teaches 
that those who live always in communion 
with Christ have Christ in themselves and 
need falter at nothing. When we are serving 
him he helps us. The light of his life in us 
will make our lives shine so that where we go 
the darkness will be changed to day. Then 
we will always be conquerors in him. 



[191] 



€ii^tm*^ i$oDt anti 3it^ jmtmhm 



[19S] 



^^ Lord, give me grace 
To take the lowest place: 
Nor even desire, 
Unless it he thy will, to go up higher, 

" Except by grace, 
I fail of lowest place; 
Except desire 
Sit low it aim$ awry to go up higher,' 



[ 194] 



CHAPTER FOURTEEN 




T. PAUL 

church 



speaks of the 
as the body of 
Christ. He had his own 
body in his incarnation. 
Now his body is the whole 
great company of his peo- 
ple, all who love him, trust him, and are 
faithfully following him. Every believer is a 
member of this body and has some function 
to fill in it. St. Paul uses the human body and 
its members in a very effective way in illus- 
tration of important spiritual truth. " As 
the body is one and hath many members, and 
all the members of the body, being many, are 
one body ; so also is Christ." " Ye are the 
body of Christ, and severally members there- 
of." " The body is not one member, but 
many." All that any Christian can be is one 
of the members of Christ's body. He is not 
everything. The hand is not the body. The 
[195] 



eye is not the body. The lungs are not the 
body. The most that any behever can be is a 
hand, a foot, an eye, an ear. 
Imagine the hand getting the thought that 
it is the whole body, ignoring all the other 
members, setting up for itself, and trying to 
get on independently. What could the hand 
do without the brain, without the lungs, 
without the heart ? Or think of the brain as- 
serting its independence, or claiming to be 
the body. Suppose that it really is the foun- 
tain of thought, and that in a way it directs 
all the movements of the body. Still, what 
can the brain do without the hand to carry 
dut its plans, or the tongue, to speak the 
thoughts that are born in its mysterious 
folds? The same is true of each member of 
the body — it is nothing by itself; it is de- 
pendent on the other members ; it can fulfill 
its functions only by accepting its place and 
trying to do its own little part. Alone, it is 
nothing, and can do nothing. " You have 
seen a hand cut off, or a foot, or a head, 
lying apart from the rest of the body. That 
[196] 



€}^ti^t'^ :bod^ and 9It}S jmembet^ 

is what the man becomes when he separates 
himself from others, or does anything to 
make himself unsocial." He is of use only in 
his own place. The same is true in the church. 
We are only individual members of the body 
of Christ, and we can fill our place only by 
doing what belongs to us as individual mem- 
bers. If we try to cut ourselves off from the 
body, and live independently, our life will be 
a failure. 

Again, the whole work of the body can be 
done only by a diversity of gifts in the mem- 
bers. " If they were all one member, where 
were the body ? " Suppose there was only an 
eye — no ear, no tongue, no hand, no foot; 
could the body exist? Every member of the 
body has its particular function, and no mem- 
ber is unnecessary. The health of the body 
can be preserved only by every member doing 
its own part. This is plain enough so far as 
the physical body is concerned. The same is 
true also of the body of Christ, the church. 
There are many members. There is need for 
wide diversity of gifts, else much of the work 
[197] 



for tl^e 15m Ci^tnQjcj 

that the church is set to do would not be done. 
The foot is a useful member of the body, but 
the foot could not fulfill all the bodily func- 
tions. It cannot think, it cannot smell, it can- 
not see, it cannot hear. It is good to have 
eyes. Blindness is the sorest of all physical 
losses. But deafness is also a grievous afflic- 
tion, and if you had good eyes and no ears, 
your life would be very incomplete. Your eye 
could not hear for you. Every member of 
the body has some use that no other member 
can supply. 

So it is in the church. No one person can do 
everything that needs to be done. The full- 
est life is only a fragment. Jesus Christ had 
in his life all virtues and graces. He was a 
perfect man, not sinless only, but complete. 
The only other perfect and complete life is 
found in the other body of Christ, the 
church. That is, if it were possible to gather 
from all earth's redeemed lives, through the 
ages, the fragments of spiritual beauty and 
good in each, and combine them all in one 
hfe, that too would be found to be full and 
[ 198 ] 



perfect. No one Christian can do everything 
that the church is required to do. One has 
one gift of usefulness and another another. 
There are a thousand different kinds of use- 
fulness needed, and there must be a life for 
each. 

Here we see the wisdom of variety and di- 
versity in human gifts and capacities. It is 
said that no two human faces in the world 
are identical in every feature. So no two 
human lives are just the same, with the same 
ability, the same talents, the same power of 
usefulness. This almost infinite diversity in 
capacity is not accidental. The world has a 
like variety of needs, and hence the necessity 
for so many kinds of gifts. There must be a 
hand for every task, or not all the tasks 
could be performed, not all human needs 
could be met. Some things would have to re- 
main untouched, some needs unmet. 
The Master tells us that to each one is given 
his own particular work. It is no fancy to 
say that God has a plan for every life. He 
made you for something all your own. He 
[199] 



thought about you before he made you, and 
had in his mind a particular place in his 
great plan which he made you specially to 
fill, and a piece of work in the vast world's 
scheme which he made you to do. That place 
no one but you can fill, for every other per- 
son has likewise his own place and work in 
the great divine plan. No one can do the 
work of any other. If you fail to do your 
particular duty, there will be a blank in the 
world's work, where there ought to have been 
something beautiful, something well done. 
" To each one his work." It may be only a 
little thing, but the completeness of the uni- 
verse will be marred if it is not done, how- 
ever small. 

''Each life that fails of its true intent 
Mars the perfect plan that the Master meant/ 

The particular thing that God made us to 
do is always the thing we can do best, the 
only thing that we can do perfectly. We are 
not to suppose that this is always necessarily 
a large thing, something brilliant, something 
[200] 



conspicuous. It may be something very small, 
something obscure. Indeed, the things which 
seem most commonplace may be most impor- 
tant in their place in the great plan of God, 
and may prove of greatest value to the 
world. Helen Keller writes suggestively on 
this subject: " I used to think that I should 
be thwarted in my desire to do something 
useful. But I have found that though the 
ways in which I can make myself useful are 
few, yet the work open to me is endless. The 
gladdest laborer in the vineyard may be a 
cripple. Darwin could work only half an 
hour at a time; yet in many diligent half 
hours he laid anew the foundations of philos- 
ophy. I long to accomplish a great and noble 
task ; but it is my chief duty and j oy to ac- 
complish humble tasks as though they were 
great and noble. It is my service to think 
how I can best fulfill the demands that each 
day makes upon me, and to recognize that 
others can do what I cannot. Green, the his- 
torian, tells us that the world is moving 
along, not only by the mighty shoves of its 
[201 ] 



for tl^e 15m Cl^tngis 

heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny 
pushes of each honest worker; and that 
thought alone suffices to guide me in this 
dark world and wide. I love the good that 
others do, for their activity is an assurance 
that whether I can help or not the true and 
the good will stand sure." 
Every member of the body of Christ has 
something to do. Some members do great 
things, some only small things. Ev«ry Chris- 
tian has a work all his own. It is not pre- 
cisely the same as the work of any other, but 
it is his own, and he fills his place in the uni- 
verse best when he does just that. Some one 
defined a gentleman as a man who has noth- 
ing to do. But that is not a true definition 
of God's gentleman. There is no Christian 
who has nothing to do. Each one is to find 
what his part is and then do it. Sometimes 
people attempt to do things they cannot do, 
leaving untouched, meanwhile, things they 
could do beautifully. If one has not been 
able to do what he has been trying to do, 
he is not to conclude that there is nothing 
[ 202 ] 



Ci^njst'jj isoDt and 9Itjs jHembetjs 

for him — there is some other work which he 
can do, and which is waiting somewhere for 
his coming. 

No one should ever despise another's work 
or his way of doing it. We dare not call 
any work lowly or insignificant. Besides, we 
really have nothing to do with any one's 
life's tasks but our own. " The eye cannot 
say to the hand, I have no need of thee; or 
again the* head to the feet, I have no need 
of you." Some people in their confidence in 
their own way of doing things have no pa- 
tience with the way other people do things. 
There is need for different methods, if we 
would reach the needs of people and do all 
kinds of necessary work. Let us judge no 
other man's way and no other man's work. 
St. Paul suggests also that the dull and less 
showy manner of some other people's way of 
working may be more effective than the bril- 
liant way we do things. " Nay, much rather, 
those members of the body, which seem to 
be more feeble are necessary ; and those parts 
of the body, which we think to be less hon- 
[203] 



for ti^e I3ej8t Cl^tngji 

orable, upon these we bestow more abundant 
honor." For example, the brain, the heart, 
the lungs, and other organs which work out 
of sight may not get so much attention as 
the face, the eyes, the hands, and yet they 
are even more necessary than these. One may 
lose a hand, a foot, an eye, and still live and 
make much of his life. But when lungs or 
heart are destroyed, the life is ended. 
There are showy Christians, active and valu- 
able in their way, who might be lost to the 
church and yet their loss not be felt half so 
much as that of some of the lowly ones, who 
by their prayers and godly lives help to keep 
the church alive. We dare not look with con- 
tempt upon the lowliest person. We do not 
know who are dearest to God among all his 
children. It was a poor widow in the temple 
one day who won the highest commendation 
from him who looks upon the heart. There 
is no part of the body, however unseemly and 
unhonored, which is not essential, whose func- 
tion, perhaps, is not of even greater impor- 
tance than the showiest member. So it may be 
[204] 



) 



that the plain Christians whom some people 
laugh at are they to whom the church is in- 
debted for the richest spiritual blessings it 
receives. 

We may settle It, therefore, that every one 
has his own place and his own part in the 
body of the church. Some are to preach with 
eloquent tongue the gospel of Christ. Some 
who have not the gift of eloquence are to 
pray beside the altar. There is a story of a 
monk who spoke with power, and souls were 
melted. But he was told from heaven that 
" hearts were stirred, and saints were edified, 
and sinners won, by his, the poor lay 
brother's humble aid, who sat upon the pul- 
pit stairs and prayed." If we cannot preach 
we can pray, and there may be more power 
in the praying than in the most eloquent 
preaching we could do. 

Our little part is all we have to do in the 
Master's work, but we must make sure that 
we do that. To fail in the lowliest place is to 
leave a flaw in God's great plan. All duty is 
summed up in one — that we love one another. 
[205] 



We are bound up in the bundle of life in 
most sacred associations with our fellow-men. 
Whenever, through willfulness or through 
neglect, we fail in any duty of love, we leave 
some one unhelped who needed just what we 
could have given him. 

It will be pathetic for any redeemed one to 
come home with no fruit of service. A guest 
at the Hospice of St. Bernard in the Alps 
tells this incident of one of the noble St. 
Bernard dogs that have saved so many men. 
This dog came struggling home one morning 
through the snow, exhausted and faint, till 
he reached the kennel. There he was wildly 
welcomed by the dogs. But sad and crest- 
fallen, he held his head and tail to the floor, 
and crept away and lay down in a dark corner 
of the kennel. The monks explained that he 
was grieved and ashamed because he had 
found no one to rescue that morning from 
the storm-drifts. How shall we feel, we whom 
Christ has redeemed, if we come home at last, 
ourselves, without having brought any one 
with us.^ 

[ 206 ] 



Mmvtit 



[207] 



'' Through love to light, wonderful the way 
That leads from darkness to the perfect day! 

From darkness and from sorrow of the night, 
To morning that comes singing o^er the sea. 
Through love to light; through light, God, to thee, 

Who art the love of love; the eternal light of light, ^^ 



[208] 



CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

Mmttt 




N onlooker could not have 
told in the early hours of 
the evening which were 
the wise virgins and which 
the foolish. It was not un- 
til midnight that the dif- 
ference became apparent. Even then, for a 
moment, the ten virgins seemed all in the same 
plight. They all had been asleep, and when 
they were suddenly awakened the lamps of all 
were going out. The difference then appeared 
— five had no oil with which to refill their 
lamps ; the other five had made provision in 
advance and were quickly ready to go out to 
meet the bridal procession. 
Life is full of just such tragedies as occurred 
that midnight. Thousands of people in all 
lines of experience fail because they have 
neglected their preparation at the time when 
preparation was their one duty. The reserve 
of oil was the central feature in the prepara- 
[ 209 ] 



for ti^e Tsm €:i^inQ^ 

tion of the wise virgins — that was what made 
them ready at midnight. The want of this re- 
serve was the cause of the failure of the other 
five. The teaching is that we should always 
make even more preparation than what seems 
barely necessary. Our safety in life is in the 
reserve we have in store. 

The other day a physician gave it as the rea- 
son of the death of one of his patients in 
typhoid fever, that the young man had no 
reserve of vitality, and could not make the 
fight. He had no oil in his vessel with his lamp. 
Reserve in character is also important. It is 
not enough that you shall be sufficiently 
strong to meet ordinary struggles or carry 
ordinary burdens. Any hour you may have 
to endure a struggle which will require ex- 
traordinary courage and power of endur- 
ance. If you are ready only for easy bat- 
tling, you will then be defeated. To-morrow, 
you may have to lift a load many times heav- 
ier than you carry in your common experi- 
ences. If you have no reserve of strength you 
must sink under the extra burden. 
[ 210 ] , 



We must build our lives for emergencies, if we 
would make them secure. It is not enough for 
a soldier to be trained merely for dress pa- 
rade. It requires no courage to appear well 
on the drill-ground ; it is the battle that tests 
the soldier's bravery and discipline. A writer 
tells of watching a ship captain during a voy- 
age across the Atlantic. The first days were 
balmy, without more than a pleasant breeze. 
The passengers thought the captain had an 
easy time, and some of them said that it re- 
quired little skill to take a great vessel over 
the sea. But the fourth day out a terrific 
storm arose, and the ship shivered and shud- 
dered under the buffeting of the waves. The 
storm continued, and in the morning the cap- 
tain was seen standing by the mainmast, 
where he had been all night, with his arms 
twisted in the ropes, watching the ship in the 
storm and directing it so as to meet the awful 
strain in the safest way. The reserve was 
coming out in the dauntless seaman. He had 
oil in his vessel with his lamp. 
We see the same in life's common experiences. 
[211] 



Here is a young man who seems to get on 
prosperously for a time. All things are easy 
for him. People prophesy hopefully for him. 
Then life stiffens and burdens increase. Com- 
plications arise in his affairs. He fails. He 
had no reserve, and he went down in the 
stress. On the other hand, there are men who 
move through life quietly and serenely in 
times of ordinary pressure, revealing no spe- 
cial strength, skill or genius. By and by they 
face a new order of things. Responsibility 
is increased, there are dangers, difficul- 
ties, struggles, and it does not seem that 
they can possibly weather the gale. But as 
the demands grow greater, the men grow 
larger, braver, wiser, stronger. Emergen- 
cies make men. No man ever reaches any 
very high standard of character until he is 
tried, tried sorely, and wins his way to the 
goal. 

Young people ought to form their life and 
character not merely for easy things, for 
common experiences and achievements, but 
for emergencies. When they build a ship at 
[ 212 ] 



Mtmu 

Cramp's they do not make it strong enough 
merely to run down the Delaware; they do 
not compute their measurements of strength 
for the vessel with a view to a July passage 
over the sea, when there will probably not be 
any storms. They build it for the fiercest 
tempests it may ever have to encounter. That 
is the way young people ought to do with 
their lives. Just now, in their sweet homes, 
they do not have a care or an anxious 
thought. Everything is done for them. Flow- 
ers bloom all about them, love sweetens all 
the days. They hope to have the same shel- 
tered life all their years, and they may never 
need to be strong. They may never have a 
struggle, nor know a want, nor have to face 
adversity, nor be called to fight hard battles 
for themselves. It is possible that no sudden 
midnight call may ever cause fear or con- 
sternation in their hearts. But they are not 
sure of this. Before them may lie sorest test- 
ings. At least they will repeat the folly of 
the foolish virgins, if in the days of educa- 
tion and training they prepare only for easy 
[213] 



for t^t OBeiEit C]^<n80 

experiences, unburdened days, and do not 
build into their life sound principles, stanch 
character, indomitable courage, invincible 
strength, so as to be ready for the most seri- 
ous possible future. 

What is true of life in its equipment for suc- 
cess in other departments, is quite as true of 
religious preparation. It is not enough to be 
a good Christian on Sunday and in church. It 
is not enough to seek a religion that will keep 
us respectable, decorous and true in life's 
easy, untested ways. You may never have to 
meet temptations or be called to endure per- 
secution for your faith. You may never have 
to take up the burdens of great responsibil- 
ity. Your life may always be easy. But the 
chances are that you will come into times of 
trial. Therefore you must prepare yourself \ 
now so that whatever you may be called \ 
upon to meet hereafter, in the way of duty, \ 
struggle, endurance or testing of any kind, \ 
you may not fail. Build your ship for the 
roughest seas. Have your reserve of oil, so 
that if ever your lamps are going out you 
[214] 



can refill them and keep the light shining 
through the darkest midnight hours. 
Another lesson from our Lord's parable is 
that each must have his own lamp and must 
keep it filled with his own oil. The foolish said 
to the wise, " Give us of your oil ; for our 
lamps are going out.'' But they answered, 
" Peradventure there will not be enough for 
us and you ; but go ye rather to them that 
sell, and buy for yourselves." Has it ever 
seemed to you that the wise ought to have 
granted the request of their sisters in their 
distress, sharing their oil with them.? Some 
think they were unfeeling and cold in their 
refusal. But even on the ground of right and 
justice, the answer of the wise virgins was 
right. We are not required to fail in our own 
duty in order to help another to do his duty. 
But there is a deeper meaning which our Mas- 
ter would teach here — that the blessings of 
grace cannot be transferred. That which the 
oil represents cannot be given by any one to 
another. " Each one must bear his own bur- 
den." One cannot believe for another. One 
[215] 



for tl^e T5m Cl^infijs 

cannot transfer the results of one's faith- 
fulness to another. If you have lived well 
through your years and have won honor by 
your good deeds, you cannot give any por- 
tion of that honor and good name to another 
who has lived foolishly, and begs you to share 
with him the fruits of your faithful life. If 
one woman has improved her opportunities 
and has grown into a strong, self-reliant, re- 
fined and disciplined character, while her sis- 
ter with like opportunities, has been negli- 
gent and has developed a weak, uncultured 
and unbeautiful womanhood, the first cannot 
impart any of her strength, her self-control, 
her disciplined spirit to the other, to help 
her through some special emergency. If one 
man has studied diligently and mastered every 
lesson, at length reaching a position of emi- 
nence and power, of splendid manhood and 
character, he cannot give of his self-mastery, 
strength, and right living to his brother who 
has trifled through the days which were given 
for training and preparation. A brave sol- 
dier in the day of battle cannot share his 
[216] 



courage with the trembhng comrade by his 
side. The same is true of all qualities and 
attainments — they cannot be transferred. 
So it is also in the receiving of grace. The 
holiest mother cannot share her holiness with 
her child who is defiled with sin. David would 
have died for his son Absalom, but he could 
not. We cannot take another's place in life. 
We cannot give another our burden ; it is ours 
and is not transferable. In temptation one 
who is victorious cannot give part of his vic- 
tory or part of his strength to the friend by 
his side, who is about to fall. 
There is no more solemn truth concerning life 
than this, of the individuality of each person. 
Each one stands alone before God in his un- 
sharable responsibility and accountability. 
No one of us can lean on another in the day 
of stress and terror and say, " Help me ! '' 
We may want to help others. We ought to 
want to help others. We are not Christians 
if we do not have in our hearts a passion for 
helpfulness. But there are limits tr helpful- 
ness. There are things we cannot do for 
[217] 



others, even for those nearest to us. A mother 
cannot bear her child's pain for it. A father 
cannot help his boy to be a man, save through 
persuasion and influence — he cannot make his 
boy good and noble. Then when his son comes 
to him in great spiritual need, he cannot give 
him divine grace. The wise virgins were right 
when they said, " We cannot give you of our 
oil.'' 

When we come to our times of sorrow and 
need, we cannot then get from our friends 
the help we will require. If you would be brave 
and soldierly in life's struggles and dangers 
you must acquire your courage and soldierli- 
ness now for yourself, in the days of training 
and discipline. Too many young people do 
not realize what golden opportunities come to 
them in their school days. They make little 
of the privileges they enjoy. Sometimes they 
call them anything but privileges. They 
think school life wearisome. They waste the 
days and shirk the lessons. Then by and by 
the school door closes — shuts upon them. 
Now they must face life with its responsibil- 
[ 218 ] / 



Mtm^t 



ities and they are not ready for it. Through 
all their years they may move with limping 
step, with dwarfed life, with powers undisci- 
plined, unable to accept the higher places 
that would have been offered to them if they 
had been ready for them. They fail in their 
duties and responsibilities — all because they 
wasted their school days. Napoleon once said 
to a boys' school, " Remember that every 
hour wasted at school means a chance of mis- 
fortune in future life." Never were truer 
words spoken, and their application reaches 
through all life. 

" They that were ready went in." That is 
always true of blessings, of privileges, of 
honors. They that are ready go in ; no others 
do. Young men must be ready for life's places 
if they would enter into them when they offer 
themselves. The unready are barred out — 
and they are countless. Make yourself ready 
for life's best places and you will be wanted 
for them in due time. There is no such thing 
as chance. Men get only what they are ready 
for. Many young men depend upon influence 
[219] 



for tl^e "Bejst Ci^ingjs 

— they think friends can put them into good 
places. Friends have their use and do what 
they can. But no friend, no favoritism, no 
influence can make a man ready for a place. 
That is his own matter. There are no good 
places for incompetency. The bane of life 
everywhere is unreadiness. Don't be a smat- 
terer. If you are going into business begin 
at the bottom and patiently master every de- 
tail, no matter how long it may take or how 
much it may cost you. If you are a student, 
miss no lesson, for the one lesson missed to- 
day may be the key, ten, twenty years hence 
to open the door to a place of honor, and 
you cannot go in if you do not hav6 the key. 



[220] 



a i^rogmmme for a J^av 



[221 ] 



** To-day is mine: I hold it fast, 
Hold it and use it as I may, 
Unmindful of the shadow cast 
By that dim thing called Yesterday, 

" To-morrow hovers just before, 

A bright-winged shape, and lures me on, 
Till in my zeal to grasp and know her, 
I drop To-day — and she is gone, 

" The bright wings captured lose their light; 

To-morrow weeps and seems to say, 
'/ am To-day — ah, hold me tight! 
Ere long I shall be Yesterday,^ '' 



[222] 



CHAPTER SIXTEEN 



31 l^rogtamme for a ^av 




E ought to make our days 
symphonies. Some one 
says, " There is no day 
born but comes Kke a 
stroke of music into the 
world, and sings itself all 
the way through." That is God's thought for 
each one of our days. He would not have us 
mar the music by any discords of our own. 
He wants us to live sweetly all the day — 
without discontent, without insubmission, 
without complaining, without unlovingness 
or uncharitableness. Each one of us is play- 
ing in God's orchestra, or singing in God's 
choir, and we ought not to strike a wrong 
chord or sing a discordant note all the day. 
We need the divine blessing in the morning to 
start the music in our hearts. It is always a 
pitiful mistake to begin any day without 
heaven's benediction. 

[223] 



The programme for the day should always 
open with prayer. In one of the Hebrew 
Psalms we have a suggestion of the way we 
should begin each morning. The first peti- 
tion of this old liturgy is, " Cause me to hear 
thy loving-kindness in the morning.'' This is 
a prayer that the first voice to break upon 
our ears at the opening of the day shall be 
the voice of God. It is also a request that the 
first voice we hear in the morning shall be a 
cheerful one, a voice of hope, of joy, of lov- 
ing-kindness. 

It is sad when the first sounds a child hears 
when wakening in the morning are sounds 
of anger, ill-temper, blame, complaining. A 
gentle-hearted mother takes pains that her 
child never shall be frightened or shocked by 
harsh or bitter words. She seeks to keep the 
atmosphere of her home, her baby's growing 
place, sweet and genial. It is a great thing 
when the voice of God's loving-kindness falls 
upon our ears the first of all voices when we 
wake. It makes us stronger for the day to 
have God's " Good morning " as our earliest 
[ 224 ] 



a l^togmmme tot a ^av 

greeting. It starts our thoughts in right 
channels to open our Bible and hear God's 
word of command and Christ's " Peace be 
unto you," before any news of the day, or 
any earthly calls or greetings break upon our 
ears. If the first thoughts of the morning are 
cheerful, heartening, encouraging, the day is 
brighter, sweeter, to its close. 
It will be a great thing for us If we will take 
a new thought from God each morning and let 
it be our guide, and inspire us for the day. 
We may be allowing our minds to run in 
unwholesome ways — ways of discontent, of 
envy, of meanness, of forgetfulness, of self- 
ishness in some form or other. We travel in 
these tracks persistently. If we are ever go- 
ing to reach a beautiful and joyous Chris- 
tian life, we must have these thought tracks 
vacated, fenced across, abandoned. The way 
to do this is to listen to God's voice every 
morning, as we read his word and let it start 
our minds in new and better paths. 
The next item in this programme for a day 
is the seeking of divine guidance. " Cause 
[225] 



for tl^e Tsm Ci^ingjs 

me to know the way wherein I should walk." 
We cannot find the way ourselves. The path 
across one little day seems a very short one, 
but short as it is it is tangled and obscure, 
and we cannot find it ourselves. An impene- 
trable mist covers the field of the sunniest 
day, as well as that of a moonless and star- 
less night. When clouds are hanging over 
you, you ask guidance. You pray when you 
are in trouble, but in happy times and when 
all things are going well with you, it does not 
seem to you that you need help and guidance. 
Yet you really know no more of the way 
through the bright days than through the 
dark nights. When one is walking in a forest 
and sees a little path turn away from the 
main road, he does not know whither that 
path will take him if he follows it. So we know 
not what the plan we are considering, the 
business venture we are entering upon, the 
friendship we are just forming, will mean 
to us in the next ten, twenty, fifty years. 
We need divine guidance every inch of the 
way. Our steps, unguided, though now start- 
[226] 



a l^rogmmme for a ^ar 

ing among flowers may lead us into bogs, 
thorns, and darkness. We need every morn- 
ing to pray this prayer, " Cause me to know 
the way wherein I should walk." 
Then God will always find some way to direct 
us. He guides us by his word. He guides us 
through our conscience. " The spirit of man 
is the candle of the Lord." He guides us also 
through the counsel and influence of human 
friends. He guides us by his providence. 
Sometimes this guidance is very strange. One 
said the other day, in great distress, " A 
year ago I was in trouble and I prayed to 
God most earnestly to help me. Instead of 
this he has let the trouble grow worse 
through all the year." But God is not yet 
through answering this prayer. His guidance 
has not reached its conclusion. This deepen- 
ing of the mystery, this increasing of the 
pain, this extending of the trouble — have you 
thought that that is part of God's way of 
answering your prayer and helping you? 
If Joseph, the morning he left home to go 
to find his brothers, prayed, " Cause me to 
[227] 



for ti^e 15m '€^im^ 

know the way wherein I should walk to-day,'' 
he would have wondered, on his way to Egypt 
as a captive, whether that was really the an- 
swer to his morning prayer. It certainly did 
not seem that it could be. He would prob- 
ably have wondered why God had not heard 
his request. But as years went on, Joseph 
learned that there had been no mistake in that 
guidance. If he had escaped from the cara- 
van on the way he would only have spoiled 
one of God's thoughts of love for him. When 
we pray in the morning that God will show 
us the way, we may take the guidance with 
implicit confidence. 

Another item in this programme for a day 
is defence. " Deliver me, O Jehovah, from 
mine enemies ; I flee to thee to hide me." The 
day is full of dangers. We do not know it. 
We see no danger. We go out, not dreaming 
of any possible peril. All seems fair and safe, 
yet everywhere there are enemies and dan- 
gers. How can we be sure of protection? We 
can commit our lives into the care of God. 
We have no promise that prayer will remove 
[ 228 ] 



a i^togtamtne fot a ?^ar 

the dangers out of the path — that is not the 
way God usually makes our days safe for us. 
Prayer brings divine blessing down into our 
lives, so that we shall not be hurt by enemies. 
The problem of Christian life is not to get 
an easy way, but to pass over the hardest 
way and through its worst perils^, unhurt. 
To omit prayer is to face the world's dan- 
gers unprotected. To pray, is to commit our- 
selves to the keeping of Almighty God. 
The next item of this programme for a day 
is the acceptance of God's plan for our life. 
" Teach me to do thy will." No truth means 
more if it is properly understood than that 
God thought about us before we were born, 
and had a distinct divine purpose in our crea- 
tion. We read of John the Baptist, that he 
was a man sent from God. His mission in the 
world was down among God's long plans, 
part of the Messianic prophecy. But John 
was not exceptional among men in this re- 
gard. Our life and work may not be as im- 
portant as his, but God had a plan for us too 
before we were born. Each one of us was 
[ 229 ] 



made to attain a certain character, to fill 
a certain place and to do certain work. The 
noblest use we can make of our life is to fill 
out God's plan for us. If we fail in this, no 
matter how great we may seem to be, we 
are not so great as we would have been if we 
had fulfilled God's thought for us. Browning, 
who puts so many great Scriptural truths 
so forcefully, writes: 

Ere suns and moons could wax and wane, 

Ere stars were thunder girt, or piled 

The heavens, God thought on me, his child; 

Ordained a life for me, arranged 

Its circumstances every one 

To the minutest. 

Our morning prayer is, " Teach me to do thy 
will." If God has a plan for our life he will 
not hide it from us so that we cannot learn 
what it is. Nor would he have a will for us, 
for the doing of which he holds us responsi- 
ble, if it were impossible for us to do that 
will. How then does he make his will known 
to us ? It is the work of all life. We chafe at 
[ 230 ] 



sorrow, but in sorrow God is leading us to 
accept his way. We murmur when we have 
to suffer, but pain is God's school in which 
he teaches us the lessons we cannot learn in 
any other way. We begin at the foot of the 
class and patiently pass upward, not easily, 
of ttimes painfully. A good woman who has 
had a long experience of trouble said that 
she was losing her faith in God. " If God is 
my Father," she said, " why has he permitted 
me to suffer so at the hands of one who had 
sworn to love, honor and cherish me till 
death ? " Her question cannot be answered. 
We may not presume to give God's reasons 
for allowing his child to endure such wrong 
year after year. But we may say with confi- 
dence, that in all our experiences of pain 
and suffering, of loss and disappointment, of 
sickness and privation, the Master is teach- 
ing us to do his will. We should never lose 
faith. We should keep love and trust in our 
hearts, whatever may come. 
The last item in the programme for a day Is 
a prayer for help. " Quicken me, O Jehovah, 
[ 231 ] 



(for ti^e 15m Ci^mgjs 

for thy name's sake." To quicken is to give 
new life, to strengthen. That is just what we 
need if we would learn to be beautiful in our 
Christian life. This is also just what God 
has promised to do for us. He knows our 
weakness and would give us strength. The 
tasks he sets for us, he would help us to do. 
He wishes us to attain loveliness of disposi- 
tion until his own sweetness of spirit is ours, 
and he will help us to attain it. The beauty 
we long to have in our life he will help us to 
fashion. He will take even our failures and 
make them into realizations, for the things 
we try, with love for Christ to do and cannot, 
he will work out for us. When we have done 
our best, and nothing seems to come of our 
effort, and we sit penitent and weary beside 
our work, he will come and finish it himself. 
What we really try to do is what he sees in 
our life and work. Our intentions, though we 
seem unable to carry them out, he will fulfill. 
Let us not be afraid. We have a most gentle 
and patient teacher. If only we sincerely try 
to do his will and learn the lessons he sets for 
[ 232 ] 



a n^rogramme fot: a ?^ar 

us, he will bring us through at last to our 
graduation with honor. 

" / asked for strength; for with the noontide heat 
I fainted, while the reapers, singing sweet. 
Went forward with ripe sheaves I could not 

bear. 
Then came the Master, with his blood-stained 

feet, 
And lifted me with sympathetic care. 
Then on his arm I leaned till all was done, 
And I stood with the rest, at set of sun, 
My task complete,'^ 



[233] 



Let m tou €>ne anoti^er 



[235] 



'^ There is the sweetness of the rose, 
The subtle charm of perfume rare, 
Which borne on every breeze that blows 
Can fill with fragrance all the air. 

''There is the sweetness of the song 

That trills from woodland warbler^s throat. 
Which happy memory can prolong, 
Recalling every liquid note. 

"But sweeter far than bloom or bird 
Though well the senses they beguile, 
Than au^ht by nature e'er conferred. 
Is still the sweetness of a smile.'* 



[236] 



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 

let ^0 JLotie €>ne anoti^et: 




EOPLE are beginning to 
understand that there is 
only one lesson in life to 
learn — to love. This was 
St. John's lesson. Tra- 
dition says that when they 
carried him for the last time into the 
church, he lifted up his feeble hands and said 
to the listening congregation, " Little chil- 
dren, love one another." The words are echo- 
ing yet throughout the world. This is the les- 
son we all need to learn. 

The place to begin practicing this lesson is 
at home. Some one tells about a bird that had 
two voices. When it was out among other 
birds its voice was sweet. It sang only cheer- 
ful, happy songs then, without ever a harsh 
note. The birds all thought it was one of the 
sweetest singers they had ever heard. But 
when that same bird went back to its own 
[237] 



for ti^e idm Ci^tngjs 

nest, its voice instantly lost its sweetness and 
became rough, rasping, croaking, and fret- 
ful. Perhaps being out all day, singing sweet 
songs everywhere, made the poor bird so tired 
in the evening when it got home that it could 
not be sweet any longer. But really if a little 
bird cannot be sweet both in its own nest, 
among its dear ones, and out among neigh- 
bors and strangers, would it not better be 
sweet at home anyway? 

It is said that there are some people who, like 
this strange bird, have two voices. When 
they are away from home they are models of 
amiability. They are so polite and courteous 
that everybody admires them and loves them. 
They are most gentle and kind to every one. 
They are always doing favors. They will go 
all lengths to show a kindness. They are al- 
ways happy, cheerful, patient and are ever 
encouragers of others. They are always say- 
ing appreciative things. They see the best in 
their friends and neighbors and praise it, not 
seeing faults, certainly never exposing them 
or reproving them. But it is said that when 
[ 238 ] 



Let m HoU One anoti^et 

these people get back home and are alone 
with their own families, this sweet, gracious 
voice at once changes, becomes dull, harsh, 
severe, sometimes petulant, impatient, even 
angry. 

Is it not too bad? 

It has been remarked by a careful observer 
that almost any one can be courteous, patient, 
and forbearing in a neighbor's house. " If 
anything goes wrong, or is out of tune, or 
disagreeable there, it is made the best of, not 
the worst. Efforts are made even to excuse it, 
and to show that it is not any one's fault ; or 
if it is manifestly somebody's fault, it is at- 
tributed to accident, not design. All this is 
not only easy but natural in the house of a 
friend." 

Will any one say that what is easy and natu- 
ral in the house of another is impossible in 
one's own home? It certainly is possible to 
have just as sweet courtesy, just as unvary- 
ing kindness, just as earnest efforts to please, 
just as tender care not to hurt or give pain, 
in the inner life of our own homes as it is in 
[ 239 ] 



outside social relations. That is a part of 
what St. John means when he says, " Be- 
loved, let us love one another." " One an- 
other '* certainly includes our home loved 
ones. It is not intended that we should treat 
our neighbors in a kindly Christian way, and 
then treat our own rudely, discourteously, 
and in an irritating, unkindly fashion. 
An English paper recently had an article on 
Home Manners. A young girl boarded with 
an elderly woman, who took a maternal in- 
terest in her. One evening, the young girl had 
been out rather late and a fine young man 
brought her home. The boarding-house wom- 
an asked the girl who the young man was. 
" He is my brother,'' replied the young wom- 
an. " Your brother ! " exclaimed the some- 
what cynical old lady, in a rather doubting 
tone. " Why, I saw liim raise his hat to you 
as he went away." The courtesy seemed to be 
to the older woman impossible in a girl's own 
brother. Is it so? Do brothers not usually 
practice good manners toward their sisters .f^ 
Every young man with even the smallest pre- 
[240] 



let ajs toU €>ne anoti^et 

tensions to gentlemanliness will take off his 
hat to any other young man's sister. Does he 
not also to his own ? 

Another incident in the same article is of a 
young man entering a reception room with 
his wife. He carelessly stepped on her gown 
and stumbled. " Mary," he said impatiently, 
" I wish you would either hold your dresses 
up, or have them made short." The wife said 
nothing for a moment, and then she asked 
very pleasantly, " Charles, if it had been some 
other woman whose dress you had stepped on, 
what would you have said ? " The young man 
was honest with himself. He bowed and said 
frankly, " I should have apologized for my 
awkwardness, and I do now most humbly 
apologize to you, my dear. I am truly ashamed 
of myself." 

The lesson of loving one another means that 
children should be affectionate to each other 
in their own home. Because you are older 
than your brother and sister you will not 
feel that it is your privilege to rule them, 
command them, dictate to them, to make them 
[241] 



:(for tl^e ism m^in^ 

give up everything to you and serve you, to 
please you and mind you always. That is not 
the way love does. Jesus tells us that love 
gives up, that it does not demand to be served, 
to have things done for it by others, but 
rather delights to serve, to do things for 
others. One of the most beautiful sights one 
sees among children is that of an older child 
playing the maternal part with one who is 
younger, patiently humoring her, trying to 
comfort her, doing things to soothe her, car- 
rying her when the little thing is tired, keep- 
ing sweet and loving when the child is fret- 
ful and irritable. 

But it is not only among children that there 
is need for the cultivation of love in home 
relations. There are older people who would 
do well to heed the lesson. Some people seem 
to think of their home as a place where they 
can relax love's restraint, and work off the 
bad humors and tempers which they have 
been compelled in other places to hold in 
check. But on the other hand home ought to 
be a man's training place, a place in which 
[ 242 ] 



let m lobe €)ne anotl^et: 

he may learn all the sweet and beautiful ways 
of love. A great Hindu says, " The fittest 
and most practicable place for the conquest 
of anger, selfishness, rudeness and impatience 
is in a man's own home. Be a saint there and 
it does not matter so much what you are else- 
where," 

According to St. Paul's teaching, love " suf- 
fereth long." It never gets tired doing things, 
making sacrifices, even enduring rudeness and 
injustice. Love is also " kind " — is always 
doing little, obliging things. Love " vaunt- 
eth not itself " — does not pose or strut as 
if wiser and superior, is not self-conceited, 
masterful, tyrannical. Love " seeketh not its 
own." That is the secret of it all. Too many 
people do seek their own and never think of 
the other. It is self-love that makes so many 
of us hard to get along with, exacting, 
touchy, sensitive to slights, disposed to think 
we are not fairly treated, and which sends us 
off to sulk and pout when we cannot have our 
own way. What difference whether we are 
fairly treated or not? Love does not give a 
[243] 



thought to such questions. It does not think 
at all of itself. 

^^ Love thyself last. Look near, behold thy duty 
To those who walk beside thee down life's road; 
Make glad their days by little acts of beauty, 
And help them bear the burden of life's load,'' 

There is a story of two brothers who were 
crossing a lake one day, on the ice. They 
went on together until they came to a crack. 
The bigger boy leaped over easily, but the 
little fellow was afraid to try it. His brother 
sought to encourage him, but he could not 
put nerve enough into the boy to get him to 
make the attempt. Then he laid himself down 
across the crack in the ice, making a bridge 
of his own body, and the little fellow climbed 
over on him. That is what older boys should 
always be ready to do for their younger 
brothers — make bridges of their superior 
wisdom, strength, courage, experience, on 
which the little fellows may be helped over 
and on. 

Older girls too have fine opportunities for 
[ 244 ] 



let m toU €>ne anoti^et 

helping younger brothers and sisters. They 
should be sure to show their love in all self- 
forgetful ways. A gentleman tells of seeing 
a half-grown girl carrying a large over- 
grown baby, almost as big as herself. She 
seemed to be entirely unequal to her task, and 
yet she was as happy as a lark. " Well, little 
girl, is not your load too heavy for you.^ '^ 
he asked. " Oh, no, sir," she cheerfully re- 
plied, " it is my brother." That made the 
burden light. Love made the task easy. God 
bless the little girl-mothers. They can be 
sweet influences in the home. They can do a 
thousand little things for their younger sis- 
ters and brothers. They can be patient and 
gentle with them. They can teach them many 
lessons. They can show them how to be sweet 
and brave. They can carry little burdens for 
them and help them along the hard bits of 
path. Let the older girls be guardian angels 
for the younger ones in the home. 
One beautiful thing about loving is that it 
brings its own reward. We say it costs to 
love and so it does. We must forget self. We 
[245] 



must give up our own pleasure, our own way, 
and think only of others. But it is in this 
very cost of loving that the blessing comes to 
us. We do not exhaust our store of loving in 
giving and sacrificing. The more we give the 
more we have. Instead of leaving us poor it 
makes us rich. It is like the widow's meal and 
oil. If she had refused to share her little with 
the prophet's need she would have had only 
enough to last her own household one day. 
But she gave to the prophet and the little 
supply lasted for herself, her son and the man 
of God through years. 

How can we learn the lesson.^ It takes pa- 
tience and long practice to learn any lesson. 
The lesson of love is very long and takes a 
great deal of patience and very much prac- 
tice. It begins in the heart. Let Christ live 
in you and he will sweeten your life. One day 
at an auction a man bought a vase of cheap 
earthenware for a few cents. He put into 
the vase a rich perfume, the attar of roses. 
For a long time the vase held this perfume 
and when it was empty it had been so 
[ 246 ] 



JLet m lote €>ne ^notl^n 

soaked through with the sweet perfume that 
the fragrance hngered. One day the vase fell 
and was broken to pieces, but every fragment 
still smelled of the attar of roses. 
We are all common clay, plain earthenware, 
but if the love of Christ is kept in our hearts 
it will sweeten all our life, and we shall become 
loving as he is. That is the way the beloved 
disciple learned the lesson and grew into such 
lovingness. He leaned on Christ's breast and 
Christ's gentleness filled all his life. 



[M7] 



I^m^ing l^itl^out Ceajitttg 



[249] 



When thou dost talk with God — hy prayer, I mean- 
Lift up pure hands; lay down all lusts' desires; 

Fix thoughts on heaven; present a conscience clean; 
Since holy blame to mercy's throne aspires, 

Confess fault's guilt, crave pardon for thy sin, 

Tread holy paths, call grace to guide therein. 

Even as Elias, mounting to the sky. 
Did cast his mantle to the earth behind, 

So, when the heart presents the prayer on high, 
Exclude the world from traffic with the mind; 

Lips near to God, and raging heart within. 

Is but vain babbling and converts to sin. 

— Robert Southwell. 



[250] 



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 

l^mttng Witl^out Ceajstng 




UT how can we pray with- 
out ceasing? Are we to 
spend all our time on our 
knees? This certainly is 
not the meaning. We have 
our work to do. We are 
set in our places in this world to toil. A little 
bit of garden is given every one of us to tend 
and keep. Our duties fill our hands every hour. 
We sin when we neglect any allotted task. 
We can conceive of praying that would be 
wrong — praying, when some imperative duty 
is calling us out, kneeling in our closet in 
devotion, when some distress needs our help 
outside. When a sick child requires a mother's 
care and devotion some Sunday morning, she 
would not please God if she left her child and 
went to a church service. When a physician is 
needed at a sufferer's bedside, he would not 
please God by leaving his place to attend a 
communion service. 

[251] 



It is told in old monastic legends of St. 
Francesca, that while she was unfailing in 
her religious duties, never wearying in her 
devotions, yet if in her time of prayer she 
was summoned away by any pressing domes- 
tic service, she would close her book cheer- 
fully, saying that a wife and mother, when 
needed for any duty of love, must quit her 
God at the altar to find him in tasks and 
services requiring her in her home. So there 
are times when prayer is not the duty of the 
hour. 

What then are we to understand by the coun- 
sel, to pray without ceasing? For one thing 
we know that prayer is part of the expres- 
sion of the Christian's very life. One who 
does not pray is not a Christian. We are 
God's children, and if we always keep our- 
selves in the relation of children to our Fa- 
ther, loving, obedient, trustful, submissive 
to his will, we shall pray without ceasing. Our 
communion with him never will be broken. 
That was the way Jesus lived. He was not 
always on his knees. His days were filled with 
[ 252 ] 



ll^mrtttg Witl^out Ceasing 

intense activities. Often he had not time to 
eat or to sleep. Yet there was never an in- 
stant of interruption of his fellowship with 
his Father. He was in communion with him 
even in his busiest hours. And he would have 
us live in the same way. We shall then pray 
at our work. Our heart will be in communion 
with Christ even when our hands are engaged 
in the day's duties. One writes, 

^^The busy fingers fly; the eyes may see 

Only the glancing needle which they hold; 
But all my life is blossoming inwardly, 
And every breath is like a litany; 

While through each labor, like a thread of 
gold, 
Is woven the sweet consciousness of Thee.'' 

To pray without ceasing is to do everything 
with prayer. This does not mean that every 
separate piece of work we undertake shall be 
begun with a formal act of prayer, stopping, 
kneeling, and offering a petition in words. 
This would be a physical impossibility. But 
we may keep our heart always in converse 
[253] 



with God, never out of tune with him. We 
may live so near to God that we can talk 
with him wherever we are, ask him questions 
and get answers, seek his wisdom in all per- 
plexities and his help in all experiences, and 
have his direction and guidance at every turn. 
We like to go to some human friend in whose 
love and wisdom we have confidence and talk 
over matters that are causing us anxiety, or 
about which we are uncertain. We sit down 
with our friend and consider the case and 
get advice, at least get light. Have you ever 
thought that you can do just this with Jesus 
Christ.? You cannot see him and cannot hear 
his voice, but he is as really with you as was 
the human friend with whom you took coun- 
sel yesterday. He listens to every word you 
say, as you falteringly tell him of your diffi- 
culties, your perplexities, your fears, and as 
you ask him what you ought to do. He is 
interested in all the things on which you de- 
sire light and wisdom. Nothing in your life 
is too small for him to talk over with you 
on his busiest day. 

[254] 



ptavim ^it^ottt Ceajjtng 

You say, " Yes, but I cannot hear what he 
says in answer to my questions, and how can 
I get advice or direction from him ? " You be- 
heve that Christ is able to find some way to 
maie you understand whatever he wants you 
to know. He may whisper in your heart a 
suggestion as to your duty, or he may speak 
to you in his word, which is meant to be a 
lamp to your feet. Or the advice may come 
through a human friend. He can find some 
way at least to make his will known to you. 
No joy in this world is sweeter than the joy 
of being trusted, of having others come to 
us in their needs or sorrows, that we may 
help them. One of the saddest things we can 
conceive of is not to be needed longer by any 
one, to have no one turn to us any more for 
help or love or friendship. It strengthens 
us to have another lean on us and need us. 
To have Christ need us in guiding and 
blessing others is the deepest, sweetest 
joy of earth. We need to pray without ceas- 
ing if we are to be wise helpers of others. 
We dare not give advice to any one in per- 
[^55] 



for ti^e ism Ci^tngjs 

plexity without first asking Christ what to 
say. We might say the wrong word. It is 
his work, not our own that we are doing, and 
we must have him tell us what to do. 
Wrong or mistaken advice has wrecked many 
a destiny. Ofttimes a life's whole future 
depends upon the word we say at some 
critical point. We must first get wisdom 
ourselves before we can give wisdom to 
others. 

Sometimes we wonder how the great God, 
with all the worlds in his hands, can give at- 
tention to a little worry of ours to-day. We 
are even amazed to learn that some great 
man with a thousand responsibilities, can 
think of us, be interested in us, take time to 
do things for us. How then can our Master, 
with the worlds in his thought, keep us in 
his heart, and be interested in the minute 
things of our lives ? 

"'Among so many, does he care? 
Can special love he everywhere?^ 
I asked. My soul bethought of this — 
In just that very place of his 
[256] 



ptavim ^tt^out Ceajstng 

Where he hath put and keepeth you, 
Christ has no other thing to do,^^ 



One writes, " One day last week I was ex- 
ceedingly busy. A score of things lay on my 
table, each one seeming to demand instant 
attention. It seemed that nothing else could 
be thought of. Just then a stranger came in 
and asked for an interview, stating in a sen- 
tence or two the nature of the matter on 
which advice and help were desired. I saw at 
once that the visitor was in great distress 
and needed instant help. God had sent the 
person to me. ' Have you time to give me — 
twenty minutes or a half hour ? ' was asked. 
My answer was ' Yes, I have nothing what- 
ever to do now but to listen to you and to try 
to help you.' My answer was true. Listening 
to this stranger was God's will for me at that 
hour, a bit of God's work clearly brought to 
me to be done, and I literally had nothing 
to do but that." God's will is always the first 
thing any day, any moment, and the only 
thing we have to do at that time. Nothing 
[257] 



fox ti^e 'Bejst Cl^tngji 

else can be so pressing that that may be de- 
cHned. It is the same with Christ himself. 
When you take to him any need, any question, 
any trouble, everything else is laid aside for 
the time. 

"/n just that very place of his 
Where he hath put and keepeth you, 
Christ hath no other thing to do.^^ 

To pray without ceasing means also that we 
are always to be in the spirit of prayer. 
There never should be a moment any day or 
night when we cannot at once look into God's 
face without shame, without fear, without 
remorse, without shrinking, and ask his 
blessing on what we are doing. This is a 
searching test of life. We cannot ask a bless- 
ing on any wrong thing. If a man is dishon- 
est in his business transactions, he cannot 
pray till he makes things right. St. Paul 
gives a similar test in his exhortation, 
" Whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do 
all in the name of the Lord Jesus." The coun- 
sel covers all life — our words as well as our 
[258] 



^raring Witli^ont Ceajstng 

acts. Think what it would mean to have 
every word that drops from our Hps winged 
and hallowed with prayer, always to breathe 
a little prayer before we speak and as we 
speak. This would make all our words true, 
kindly, loving, gentle — speech that will cheer 
and help those who hear. We can scarcely 
think of one using bitter words, angry, vin- 
dictive words, while his heart is filled with 
prayer. 

Think of a man doing all his day's business 
in this spirit — breathing a little prayer as 
he commends his wares, as he makes a bar- 
gain, as he measures his goods, as he dictates 
his business letters, as he talks with men. 
Think of a woman busied with her household 
cares, literally taking everything to God for 
his counsel, for his approval, for his direc- 
tion. These are not by any means imprac- 
ticable or impossible suppositions. Indeed, 
that is the way a Christian always should live, 
doing all in the name of the Lord Jesus, 
praying without ceasing. 

[259] 



for ti^e ism Ci^tngsi 

^^Give us this day our daily breads we pray, 
And give us likewise, Lord, our daily thought, 
That our poor souls may strengthen as they 

ought. 
And starve not on the husks of yesterday.^' 

" But we have not time in this busy life," 
some one says, " to pray so much." We have 
time for everything else we want to do ; have 
we not time then to look into God's face for 
five minutes before we begin a new day? We 
do not know what the day may have for us 
— what temptations, what sudden surprises 
of danger, what sorrows ; what would we do 
if we did not have God to guide us and help 
us in all this maddening maze of things? 
Dare we fail to ask God's blessing on the 
journey we are about to take, on the piece 
of work we are about to begin, on the in- 
vestment we are about to make, on the new 
friendship we are just forming, on the new 
home we are going to move into to-morrow? 
Time is never wasted that is spent in getting 
God's blessing upon our life. 
Then, really it does not require time. We can 
[ 260 ] 



ptai^im ^iti^out Ceajsitig 

pray as we work, and work as we pray. It is 
only looking into God's face every little 
while, and saying, " Father, bless me in this 
piece of work that I am about to begin; 
sweeten this friendship that I am forming ; 
strengthen me for this struggle upon which 
I am entering ; guide me through this tangle 
in which I am enmeshed; keep me sweet and 
patient in this annoyance, this irritation 
which has come to me.'' 

St. Francis of Assisi was said to live a life 
of unceasing prayer. A friend desired to get 
the secret of the saint's devotion and watched 
him to see how he prayed. All he saw, how- 
ever, was this — no long hours spent in pray- 
er, no agonies of supplication on his knees, 
but, again and again, as he went on with his 
duties, he was heard saying, with bowed head 
and clasped hands, " Jesus ! Jesus ! Jesus ! " 
That was the way he prayed. He did every- 
thing in the name of Christ. He and Jesus 
walked together continually — they were never 
separated. St. Francis did not need, when 
he felt the pressure of weakness, when the 
[261] 



burden was growing too heavy, when he was 
in danger of falling — he did not need in any 
emergency to leave his work and hurry away 
to his cell to pray. He prayed just where he 
was ; he talked to Christ about everything as 
familiarly as he would have done with a 
friend. 

This is the kind of Christian life our Mas- 
ter would have us live. We are not to pray 
merely at certain hours, nor in formal acts 
of devotion ; every breath is to be a prayer. 
Nor is our prayer to be only coming to God 
with requests, asking him to do things for us. 
Request is really the smallest part of true 
praying. What do you and your close and 
trusted friend do when you are together? 
What do you talk about? Is the burden of 
your conversation asking favors? May you 
not be with your friend for hours and never 
make a single request? You talk of things 
that are dear to you. Sometimes indeed you 
may not speak at all, but sit in silence, your 
hearts flowing together in love and fellow- 
ship. Prayer to God is not all clamor for 
[ 262 ] 



I^mting Wit^^out Ceasing 

favors. Much of it is love's tryst, sweet com- 
munion without words, as when John leaned 
his head on Jesus' breast, and loved and 
rested in silence. 

" Rather^ as friends sit sometimes hand in handy 
Nor mar with words the sweet speech_of their 

eyes; 
So in soft silence let us oftener bow. 
Nor try with words to make God understand,^' 



[26S] 



Eootis anD Bo0e0 



[26fi] 



^I think man's great capacity for pain 

Proves his immortal birthright. I am sure 

No merely human mind could bear the strain 
Of some tremendous sorrows we endure. 



" Unless our souls had root in soil divine 

We could not bear earth's overwhelming strife. 
The fiercest pain that racks this heart of mine, 
Convinces me of everlasting life," 



[266] 



CHAPTER NINETEEN 




OME people dislike creeds 
and doctrines. " We have 
no time for these,'' they 
say. " Life is too short 
for the discussion of these 
abstruse matters. Give us 
practical duties. Tell us how to live, how to 
make home sweet, how to get along with peo- 
ple, how to act in our social relations." But 
we cannot have flowers without roots, and 
what roots are to roses doctrines are to du- 
ties. Nearly all of St. Paul's Epistles are 
illustrations of this. There is a section given 
up to doctrinal discussion, and ofttimes this 
is rather serious reading too. Then follows 
another section in which practical duties are 
taught, sometimes in a very minute way. 
Thus eleven chapters of the Epistle to the 
Romans are filled with theology. Then, be- 
ginning with the twelfth, we have a simple 
[^67] 



and clear setting forth of duties. Love must 
be without hypocrisy. We are to honor others 
rather than ourselves. We are to bless them 
that persecute us. We are not to be wise in 
our own conceit. We are to be good citizens. 
We are to pay our debts, not owing any man 
anything but love. A whole system of beauti- 
ful Christian ethics is packed in the last chap- 
ters of this great epistle. But these two sec- 
tions are one — common duties grow out of 
strong doctrines. 

Or take the Epistle to the Ephesians. We 
have three solid chapters of doctrinal teach- 
ing, in which we are led up to the mountain 
tops of spiritual truth. Then we come down 
into the valleys of every-day life and are 
taught the simplest lessons of practical Chris- 
tian living — to put away lying and speak 
truth, not to let the sun go down on our 
wrath, not to steal any more, to let no cor- 
rupt speech come out of our mouth. Then 
we have, too, a scheme of Christian home 
ethics — duties of wives, of husbands, chil- 
dren, parents, servants, masters. All these 
[ 268 ] 



EootjJ and Mom 



practical exhortations spring out of the 
great doctrines of grace which are elabo- 
rated in the earlier chapters. These are the 
roses — the roots are in the theological sec- 
tion. 

The Rev. J. H. Jowett, in a striking ser- 
mon,* calls attention to the way the sixteenth 
chapter of First Corinthians begins. The fif- 
teenth chapter is given up to the subject of 
the resurrection. There is no sublimer pas- 
sage in the Bible. Then comes in the same 
breath as it were, with the last sentence this 
most prosaic item, " Now concerning the col- 
lection." The artificial chapter division in our 
Bible hides the abruptness of the transition. 
Yet, when we look at it closely, is there any- 
thing incongruous in the sudden passing 
from the great truths of resurrection and 
the immortal life to the duty of taking a 
collection? " Now hath Christ been raised 
from the dead. . . . Death is swallowed up 
in victory. ... Be ye steadfast and unmov- 

* Apostolic Optimism, published by Hodder and 
Stoughton, London. 

[ 269 ] 



able, always abounding in the work of the 
Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor 
is not vain in the Lord. Now concerning the 
collection." " It feels like passing from brac- 
ing mountain heights to sweltering vales," 
says Mr. Jowett. " Say, rather, it is like 
passing from the springs to the river." 
Great doctrines first, then common duties. 
Roots, then roses. 

Some might say that the truth that we are 
immortal, that we shall never die, has no 
practical value, can make no difference on 
our life in this world. Why spend time in such 
speculations.^ But that is not the view St. 
Paul took of it. He said, " In Christ shall 
all be made alive. . . . The trumpet shall 
sound, and the dead shall be raised. . . . 
Wherefore, be ye . . . always abounding in 
the work of the Lord." The fact that life 
will go on forever is the reason that we should 
always abound in the work of the Lord. Art- 
ists think it worth while to put their noble 
creations on canvas, in the hope that they 
may last one hundred years. But when a 
[ 270 ] 



mootjs ann mm 



mother teaches her little child beautiful les- 
sons or puts gentle thoughts into its mind, 
she is doing it not for a century or for ten 
centuries, but for immortality. Does not this 
make it worth while for her to do her work 
well? 

This truth of immortality gives a wonderful 
motive to those who are doing spiritual work. 
Some of the people whom we seek to help are 
broken in their earthly lives. There are those, 
for example, whose bodies are dwarfed and 
misshapen. What does the truth of the im- 
mortal life tell us about these crippled and 
deformed ones.^ Only for a little while shall 
they be kept in these broken bodies. What 
an emancipation death will be to them! 
One tells of a little wrinkled old woman who 
sells newspapers at a certain street corner in 
a great city, day after day, in sun and rain, 
in winter and summer. Here is the story of 
this poor creature's life. She was bereft of 
her husband, and then an orphan grandchild 
was put into her arms by her dying daughter, 
and she promised to provide for the little one. 
[271 ] 



This is the secret that sends her to her hard 
task day after day. Then that is not all the 
story. Some old friends offered the woman a 
home with them in return for trifling ser- 
vices, but she would have had to be faithless 
to her trust. This she could not be. Her dead 
daughter's child was sacred to her. So she 
stands there on the street corner in all weath- 
ers, selling newspapers to provide for the 
little child. Ah, it is a noble soul that is in 
that old bent, wrinkled body ! No angel in 
heaven is dearer to God than that poor crea- 
ture, serving so faithfully at her post. Think 
what immortality means to her ! 
A little child was left in the arms of a young 
father by a dying mother. He was thankful. 
" Her beautiful mother will live again in her, 
and I shall be comforted," he said. He lav- 
ished his love upon her. But the child devel- 
oped spinal disease and grew to be sadly mis- 
shapen. The father's disappointment was 
pitiful. He drew himself away from the ill- 
favored child, neglecting her. At length the 
child died and as the father sat in his room 
[ 272 ] 



mootjs anD Mom 



in the evening, thinking of her sad, short 
hfe, he fell asleep and a radiant vision ap- 
peared before him. It was his daughter, 
straight and beautiful, more beautiful than 
her lovely mother ever had been. He held out 
his arms yearningly, and she drew near to 
him, and knelt, and laid her head against his 
breast. They talked long of things in their 
inmost souls, and he understood that this was 
his daughter in reality. This was the child 
as she was in her inner life, the spirit-child, 
what she was as God and angels saw her. He 
never had been able to see her in this radiant 
loveliness, however, because of the physical 
deformity which disease had wrought, thus 
hiding from his blinded eyes the real splen- 
dor of her sweet, lovely girlhood. With great 
tenderness he laid his hand on her head, say- 
ing, " My daughter ! " Then the vision van- 
ished — it was only a dream. But in the dream 
there was a revealing of the truth about her. 
This was indeed the child over whose disfig- 
urement he was so bitterly disappointed. This 
was the being that had dwelt in that crooked 
[273] 



body. This was what she was now in her 
immortal body. 

So we begin to see that St. Patil spoke truly 
when he said that since we are immortal, and 
because we are immortal, we should abound 
in the work of the Lord — " forasmuch as ye 
know that your labor is not vain in the 
Lord." Those who touch children's lives these 
days with divine benedictions are putting 
upon them marks of beauty which never shall 
fade out. Be not impatient of results. The 
seed you sowed yesterday may not come to 
ripe harvest to-day or to-morrow, but God's 
years are long. 

'^ The good we hoped to gain has failed us — well, 
We do not see the ending — and the boon 
May wait us down the ages — who can tell ? — 
Or bless us amply soon. 

^^ In God^s eternal plan, a month, a year, 
Is but an hour of some slow April day 
Holding the germs of what we hope or fear, 
To blossom far away.^^ 

When we think of it closely we see that the 

collection to which St. Paul refers was not 

[ 274 ] 



BootjS anD l&om 



something incongruous, after the great res- 
urrection lesson, but came most fittingly 
after what he had been saying. It was a col- 
lection for the poor Christians at Jerusalem. 
One of the first impulses of Christianity is 
to care for those who are poor and in need. 
There was something very beautiful, there- 
fore, in this " collection.'' It was to be taken 
by Gentik Christians to be sent to Palestine 
for the relief of poor Jewish Christians. The 
feeling between Gentiles and Jews was not 
naturally friendly, but love of Christ brought 
the two races together. 

The fifteenth chapter, therefore, belongs 
logically before the sixteenth. They could not 
have had this collection before they had the 
wonderful teachings about the death and res- 
urrection of Christ. There must be a spring 
with its exhaustless fountains away back in 
the hills before there can be streams of water 
to pour out with their refreshment. There 
would never have been a collection among the 
Gentiles in Corinth and Ephesus for poor 
Jews in Palestine, if Christ had not died 
[275] 



and risen again. Nothing but the gospel can 
make men of different races love each other. 
But as we read the great words, " Now hath 
Christ been raised.'' . . . " O death where is 
thy sting? " . . . " Thanks be to God who 
giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ," it is natural and fitting, no descend- 
ing from lofty peak to lowly valley, no com- 
ing down from the glorious to the common- 
place, to read, " Now for the collection." It 
is only part of the great outflow of love. 
If, after a sacred communion service, in which 
we have all been lifted up in blessed love for 
Christ, the minister should tell us of a family 
of Christians somewhere who were suffering 
and in sore distress, hungry and famishing, 
and ask us for a collection for their relief, 
we would not think he had broken in upon 
the sacredness of the holy service, and there 
would be nothing inappropriate or incongru- 
ous in his saying, after the bread and the 
wine had been received, " Now we will take 
the collection for these poor fellow Christians 
of ours." The collection would be almost as 
[276] 



mootjs anD EojSe^ 



much of a sacrament as the taking of the 
bread and the wine. Rehgion always kindles 
love. Every time we really look anew upon 
Christ as our suffering Redeemer, we love 
others more and our sympathies come out in 
greater tenderness. 



[277] 



^i^otD jme tl^e pat]^ 



[279] 



*'// we could see beyond to-day 

As God can see; 
If all the clouds should roll away, 

The shadows flee — 
O'er present griefs we would not fret, 
Each sorrow we would soon forget. 
For many joys are waiting yet 

For you and me. 

^^If we could know beyond to-day 

As God doth know, 
Why dearest treasures pass away 

And tears must flow — 
And why the darkness leads to light, 
Why dreary paths will soon grow bright! 
Some day life's wrongs will be made right 

Faith tells us so. 

^^If we could see, if we could know. 

We often say! 
But God in love a veil doth throw 

Across our way: 
We cannot see what lies before^ 
And so we cling to him the more. 
He leads us till this life is o'er. 

Trust and obey." 



[280] 



CHAPTER TWENTY 



^i^otjj jme t^t i^ati^ 




HE little prayer is singu- 
lar — " Thou wilt show me 
the path." Does the great 
and glorious God actual- 
ly give thought to in- 
dividual human lives? We 
can conceive that he might direct the career 
of certain great men, whose lives are of im- 
portance in the world ; but will he show com- 
mon people the way? Will he guide a poor 
man or a little child? The Bible teaches that 
he will. He feeds the sparrows. He clothes 
the lilies. He calls the stars by their names. 
Then the Bible is full of expressions of God's 
interest in individuals. Jesus taught this 
truth when he said that the Good Shepherd 
calleth his own sheep by name. The Shep- 
herd Psalm has it, too — " The Lord is 
my Shepherd; I shall not want. He leadeth 
me.'' 

[ 281 ] 



Let no one think that he is only one of a 
crowd in God's thought. Each believer has 
his own place, and is cared for just as if he 
were the only one. God loves us as individ- 
uals — he could not really love us in any other 
way. He knows always where we are and what 
our circumstances are. God's will refers to 
the smallest matters and takes in the smallest 
events in each life. A Spanish proverb says, 
" A leaf stirs not on the tree without the 
will of God." God's hand is in every event. 
We talk of the laws of nature and sa^y that 
nothing ever gets out of their grasp. But 
what is nature .f^ It is not something inde- 
pendent of God. The laws of nature are sim- 
ply God's laws. Nothing takes place that is 
contrary to the divine will. Nothing — no 
storm, no earthquake, no cyclone, no tidal 
wave, ever gets out of God's control. Natu- 
ral law rules in everything and natural law 
is simply the power of God manifesting it- 
self. This world is not controlled by chance, 
nor by any blind fate, but by him who loved 
us so much that he gave his Son to die for 
[2Si] 



^i^otD iHe ti^e i^ati^ 



us. We need not hesitate, therefore, to ac- 
cept the truth that God will show each one 
of us the path. 

How can we have this guidance.? If we would 
have it, the first thing for us is to realize our 
need of it. Some people do not. They think 
they can find the way themselves. They never 
pray, " Show me the path." During the past 
summer a letter from Switzerland told of two 
men who undertook the ascent of one of the 
mountains near Geneva, without guides or 
ropes or any of the ordinary appHances for 
safety. Their conduct attracted attention, 
being so foolhardy, and their progress was 
watched through strong glasses by many at 
the hotel. Soon the men were seen to be in 
trouble, wandering aimlessly over the ice. In 
a Httle while one of them disappeared, and 
not long afterward the other also was lost to 
view. A searching party went out, and it was 
discovered that the first man had fallen into 
a crevasse, hundreds of feet deep, where his 
dead body was found. The other had fallen, 
but, more fortunate than his companion, he 
[«83] 



fell into the snow and was able to crawl out 
and make his way to a hospice, where he was 
found in an unconscious state. 
It is foolhardy to try to climb the Alps with- 
out a guide. It is far more perilous to try 
to go through this world without a guide. It 
is one of the most assuring promises of the 
Bible that God himself will be our guide, not 
only in our mountain-climbs and through the 
dark valleys, but in every part of our way. 
But we must be willing to be led. God will 
not drive us, nor compel us — he will lead 
us. And we may take another path if we 
will. Many people do. If we would be shown 
the way, we must be conscious of our need 
of guidance and must walk obediently in 
the path that the Guide marks out for our 
feet. 

If we would have God show us the path, we 
must also trust his guidance. Sometimes we 
grow impatient of God's leading because he 
seems to take us only along homely ways, 
giving us only commonplace things to do. 
We think we could do something larger, could 
[284] 



I 



^i^otD pit tt^t pat}^ 

make more of our life, if we could get into 
a wider sphere and have greater opportuni- 
ties. Some people even chafe and fret, spoil- 
ing the lowly work that is given them to do, 
in their discontent with it and their desire 
for some larger place and some more con- 
spicuous work. If therefore we ask God to 
show us the path, we must accept his leading 
as it becomes clear to us. 

The path may not always be smooth. It is the 
path of life, but the way of life of ttimes leads 
through painful experiences. The baby be- 
gins to live in a cry, and in some form or 
other we suflFer unto the end. Sometimes there 
is inscrutable mystery in a particular trial 
through which we are led. About four and a 
half years ago a happy young couple came 
from the marriage altar and set up their 
home. They were full of hope and joy. A year 
later a baby came. It was welcomed with 
great gladness. The young parents gave it 
to God. From the beginning, however, the 
baby was a sufferer. All its short years it has 
been sick. The parents have done all that 
[285 ] 



for ti^e isejst Cl^ingis 

self-sacrificing love could do, all that money 
could do, in the hope that the little one would 
recover. The best physicians have been inter- 
ested and have exhausted their skill in vain 
efforts to cure the child. But now, at three 
and a half years, when other children are 
so bright, so beautiful, such centers of glad- 
ness in their homes, this little one is a baby 
still in her helplessness, not seeing the faces 
that bend over her in passionate love, not re- 
sponding to the caresses and tendernesses 
which are lavished upon her. 
Recently the child was taken to a distin- 
guished physician. After careful examination 
his decision was that the case is absolutely 
hopeless. We can understand how, with what 
crushing weight, the doctor's word fell upon 
this mother's ears, and how they darkened her 
life. Until that moment she had still hoped 
that her child might some time be cured. Now 
she understands that how long soever the 
little one may stay with her, she will never be 
any better. 

" What shall I do ? " was the mother's ques- 
[286] 



tion, when talking with a friend, in teUing 
of the visit to the great doctor. " What can 
I do? What ought I to do? " 
There is something inscrutable in this provi- 
dence. What comfort can any one give to 
such parents? Yet there is comfort; there 
must be comfort, since God is their Father. 
For one thing, their child is just as dear to 
God as if she were well and strong and bright. 
Indeed, she is dearer. God is just like a 
mother in his exceeding tenderness and 
yearning for one who is suffering. This child 
is dear to God and has his gentlest sympathy 
and care. The child's angel has access to God 
continually. 

Then some day she will be well. Heaven is 
the place where earth's arrested growths 
will reach perfection, where earth's blighted 
things will develop into full beauty. The child 
will not be sick, nor blind, nor imperfect, 
there. The hopelessness of her condition is 
only for the present life. Sometime, some- 
where, the mother's dreams of beauty, not 
realized here, in her child's stunted life, will 
[ 287 ] 



all be fulfilled, and her prayers for her child's 
healing will all be answered. There is comfort 
in this. 

But, meanwhile.^ Yes, it is hard to look upon 
the little one's condition, so pathetic, so piti- 
ful, and to remember the great doctor's 
words, " Absolutely hopeless. She will never 
be any better." Is there any comfort.? Can 
this mother say that in this experience God 
is showing her the path? Yes. Is this suffer- 
ing part of that path.? Yes, it is. Does God 
know about this child's long struggle.? He 
knows the whole story. Has he heard the 
countless prayers that have gone Tip from 
this home for the baby's recovery? He has 
heard every prayer. Does he know what the 
doctor said the other day? Yes, he knows all. 
Has he then no power to do anything? Yes, 
he has all power. Why, then, has he not cured 
the child? He has his reasons. Why does he 
allow the agony to continue in the heart of 
the mother ? 

We dare not try to answer our own ques- 
tions. We do not know God's reason. Yet one 
[ 288 ] 



thing we know — it is all right. God is love. 
He is never unkind. He makes no mistakes. 
What good can possibly come from this 
child's pitiable condition and from its con- 
tinuation, year after year in this condition? 
We do not know — but God knows. Perhaps it 
is that the child may be prepared for a glory 
which shall far surpass in splendor that of 
any child that is well and joyous now. Or 
perhaps it is for the sake of the father and 
the mother who are being led through these 
years of anguish, disappointment and bitter 
sorrow, and will be transfigured by the expe- 
rience. We know at least that these parents 
are receiving a wonderful training in unself- 
ishness, in gentleness, in patience, in trust. 
Perhaps all this sore experience in their child 
is to make their hearts more gentle, to teach 
them trust and songs of joy. 
The disciples asked the Master whose sin it 
was — the sin of the blind man or of his 
parents, that he was blind. Jesus replied, 
" Neither — no one's sin, but that the works 
of God might be done in the man." He meant 
[289] 



fov tl^e ism Cl^tngjj 

that this blindness gave him the opportunity 
of doing a work of mercy. May it be that 
this child's condition finds its reason in the 
ministry of love which is called out in the 
mother and the father? It has been a wonder- 
ful training and education for them. They 
have been prepared by it for a blessed service 
to other suffering ones. Perhaps in heaven 
they will learn that they owe to their child's 
long and painful suffering much of what 
they shall then wear of the beauty of 
Christ. 

In one of the famous lace shops of Brussels, 
there are certain rooms devoted to the spin- 
ning of the finest and most delicate lace pat- 
terns. These rooms are altogether darkened, 
save for the light from one very small win- 
dow, which falls directly upon the pattern. 
There is only one spinner in the room, and 
he sits where the narrow stream of light 
falls upon the threads of his weaving. 
" Thus," we are told by the guide, " do we 
secure our choicest products. Lace is always 
more delicately and beautifully woven when 
[ 290 ] 



^i^otjj Pit t^t pat\^ 

the worker himself is in the dark and only 
his pattern is in the light." 
May it not be the same with us in our weav- 
ing? Sometimes it is very dark. We cannot 
understand what we are doing. We do not 
see the web we are weaving. We are not able 
to discover any beauty, any possible good in 
our experience. Yet if only we are faithful 
and fail not and faint not, we shall some day 
know that the most exquisite work of our life 
was done in those very days when it was so 
dark. If you are in the deep shadows because 
of some strange, mysterious providence, do 
not be afraid. Simply go on in faith and love, 
never doubting, not even asking why, bear- 
ing your pain in silence, and learning to sing 
while you suffer. God is watching and he will 
bring good and beauty out of all your pain 
and tears. Just as truly in such experiences 
as this, as in the brightest and most joyous, 
can we say, "Thou art showing me the path." 
This very path which seems to you so dark, 
so hard for your feet, is the path God is 
choosing. 

[291] 



for ti^e -Bejst CDtngjS 

Then Gx)d's path Is always the right path. 
" He led them forth by the right way." God 
never leads any one in the wrong way. The 
path is steep, but it runs up the mountain of 
God. It may be rough, but the end will be so 
blessed, so glorious, that in its joy we will 
forget the briers and thorns on the way. 

^^0 pilgrim, as you journey, do you ever gladly 
say, 
In spite of heavy burdens and the roughness of 

the way, 
That it surely does not matter — all the strange 

and bitter stress; 
Heat and cold, and toil and sorrow — Hwill be 
healed with blessedness — 
For the road leads home? 

^^ Home! the safe and blissful shelter where is 
glad and full content, 
And companionship of kindred; and the treas- 
ures early rent 
From your holding shall be given back, more 

precious than before. 
Oh! you will not mind the journey with such 
blessedness in store. 

When the road leads home. 
[292] 



^Ohj you will not mind the roughness, nor the 

steepness of the way, 
Nor the chill, unrested morning, nor the drear^ 

ness of the day; 
And you will not take a turning to the left or 

to the right. 
But go straight ahead, nor tremble at the coming 
of the night, 

^or the road leads home,'^ 



[293] 



f,m 13 iso-? 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: Oct. 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



